Magnets
by Snavej
Summary: During their second year of university, Oliver, Eugene and Yasuhara find some students to take the spare room. However, Oliver finds that one of their new housemates is a lot more trouble than they were worth... [University AU, fluff for Valentine's Day!]
1. Prologue

For the first year of my university education, my parents decided that it would be important for social reasons to go into the university's halls. Unsurprisingly, I hated it. The administration split me up from Gene and so I was stuck with a load of slobbish idiots.

For our second year of university, our parents redeemed themselves. Being financially secure enough to do so, they bought a small house not far from the university and rented it out to myself, Gene and Gene's friend Yasuhara.

Our rent was just high enough to cover the mortgage and the bills. There were four bedrooms, though one lay unused, two bathrooms and a kitchen diner area. Perfect.

Gene was long since used to my habits and Yasuhara soon picked up on them. We lived quietly and without fuss. Until the fire.

The fire did not occur on our property. No. It occurred in the first week of the January exams in one of the university halls. Though it was normal for fire alarms to happen every other day in halls, this had not been burnt toast or a drill.

The entire block had burnt down, leaving only the shell of the building. No one had died. But over a hundred students had been displaced. The international students had been given priority in the spare spaces in the other halls, but that still left a considerable number of students with nowhere to live.

Our spare room had been advertised for a while.

 **Double room - sharing with 3 men, ten minute walk from campus, close to supermarket, quieter personalities preferred.**

My mother was in charge of the property in strict terms. When she received a phone call from two desperate girls who asked to share the room, she went out and bought a set of bunk beds, new double duvets, matching covers, sets of towels, new curtains and desks.

She even repainted the walls purple.

And that is how we ended up with two girls living in our house.

* * *

 **Author's note: So Valentine's Day is just around the corner and so I am writing a delicious piece of fluff! First chapter out Thursday, one a day updates from then!**


	2. Chapter 1

"Noll! Noll, can you please come and help with this," my mother called. "Can you grab those boxes?"

"Mrs Davis, let me take that from you," Yasuhara insisted.

"I am stronger than I look young man, and please call me Luella."

"Of course you are Mrs Davis but—"

"Luella," my mother interrupted.

She glared at me again and I sighed before downing the rest of my tea and getting up to help. I do not know why she bothered to ask me. The two girls currently carrying in their belongings had more muscle than I did. But my mother liked to think she had raised two gentlemen.

I grabbed a box from the boot of the car outside and carried it up to the bedroom.

"Where do you want me to put this?" I asked.

One of the girls, I had not picked up on their names, pointed to one corner of the room. It struck me that if their halls had burnt down, that they should not have this many belongings. But I did not question it.

"Masako! Where are you?"

As I left the room, the other girl ran straight into me as she called for her friend.

"Oof! Sorry!"

I ignored her apology and started down the stairs.

"We've almost got all your stuff, can we…"

Her voice trailed off as the distance between us increased. I walked back out to the car and realised that there were no more boxes to bring in. I shut the boot and headed inside. The cold January air held no incentive to remain outdoors.

Striding past my mother and Yasuhara, who was attempting to make a good impression, I headed for the kitchen with the intention of making tea.

"Noll? Are you putting the kettle on? Will you make enough for everyone?" my mother called through.

Without responding, I added extra water to the kettle and waited for it to boil. I noticed a sheet of paper on the table with Gene's curly handwriting scrawled across it. As I picked it up, I read the title: Chore Rota.

Scanning the piece of paper I noted that I was on bins this week. Good. Taking the bins out took no more than five minutes.

The kettle boiled. I returned the piece of paper where I found it, no doubt Gene would want a House Meeting later to discuss it. I collected six cups from the cupboard and made four of the cups of tea before realising that I did not know how the new girls liked theirs.

Frowning, I left the kitchen and stood at the bottom of the stairs before calling up.

"How do the girls like their tea?"

"They have names you know!" my mother called back down.

I rolled my eyes and ignored her, knowing the answer to my question would come. If it did not, they would not get tea. It did not bother me either way.

"Milk and one sugar."

"No milk, two sugars."

I gave them no indication that I had heard them, but returned to the kitchen and made up the last two cups of tea. Yasuhara walked in as I had been about to carry them through and took the tray from me.

"I'll take this," he said cheerfully.

I plucked my tea from the tray before he left and took a seat in my armchair. We did not have a television, but on the other side of the dinner table, we had a sofa, an old beanbag and my chair. Strictly it was not _my_ chair, but as Gene and Yasuhara preferred to canoodle on the sofa, no one else ever sat in it.

As I sipped at my tea, black no sugar, I picked up my book and read. My father had given me a stack of books for Christmas, as was his custom. As a professor of Law, he had no idea what constituted a good physics book, so he made up for his lack of knowledge with quantity and trusting the online reviews.

The Cosmic Onion, my current read, was not particularly advanced but it covered some topics that we had not yet done in lectures. I thought it a pleasant read for a Saturday afternoon.

However I did not get far before my mother was insisting that I "be helpful". I had hoped that cups of tea would have distracted her from her need to have me involved in absolutely everything for at least half an hour.

Sighing, I put down my book after taking note of the pages and joined everyone else in the girls' room.

"... enough room for two wardrobes, but this one should be large enough to share," my mother said as I walked in. "Oh Noll, how lovely of you to join us."

Gene gave me a sympathetic look.

"We could always put a wardrobe out in the corridor," Yasuhara suggested. "There is space enough for one in the corner."

"And have everyone be able to go through my underwear! No thanks," the slightly taller of the two girls said, laughing. "It's fine, we'll manage. Really Mrs Davis, you've been kind enough already!"

"Please, dear, call me Luella. Now boys what do you have planned for dinner?"

Yasuhara and Gene shared a look, not bothering to glance my way as they knew I did not care.

"Well uh—"

"We've got everything in for lasagna, we've even got that quorn vegetarian mince," Gene said quickly. "We could make that?"

"Lovely, well how about you two boys get going on dinner and Noll here can show the girls where the supermarket is, no doubt they'll want to pick up things for the rest of the week."

"Oh, yes, that'd be great!"

"We can take my car."

I scowled and left the room. I knew there was no point arguing with my mother. Once in my own room, I finished my tea and found a jacket.

I found the two girls, togged up to their armpits, by the front door clutching reusable carrier bags.

"Shall we?"

I nodded and the three of us walked out to the car. The shorter girl climbed in the driver's seat while the other pulled the front seat forward. The car only had three doors, so one of us would have to climb into the back.

"Do you want to sit in the back or the front?"

"I don't care."

"Then you can go in the back."

I climbed into the cramped space and put on my seatbelt. Being a good six inches taller than both of these girls, it seemed that they had three times as much room in the front than I did in the back, despite having two seats to myself.

On the way home, I decided, I would sit in the front.

I tuned out to their conversation, occasionally providing directions to the nearest supermarket. It usually took fifteen minutes to walk, but given the saturday afternoon traffic, it took almost as long to drive.

Shopping, as it so often is, was torture. The two girls wanted to look down every single aisle. Including those with baby clothes and nappies. I told them it was unnecessary but they did it anyway.

I longed to be at home, in my chair, with my book. Yet in the back of my mind I knew that this would only last for today. As soon as my mother left I could stop all pretenses of being helpful.

Eventually we made it back home in one piece. I lifted one of the shopping bags out of the boot to carry in when one of the girls tried to snatch it from me.

"It's okay, I'll take that one!" she insisted, her face reddening with every passing second.

Shrugging, I let go to pick up another bag, but not before I caught a glance of what she evidently did not want me to see. Several boxes of tampons.

Snorting, I picked up two other bags, this time containing orange juice, porridge and pasta.

The red faced girl had not lost her blush when I dropped off the bags on the kitchen table. Gene and Yasuhara had already rushed out to take the rest of the shopping in, so I did not bother to help.

"You'll be sharing those cupboards," I said, pointing.

"Yeah, Gene showed me," the blushing girl said.

Her continually red face intrigued me. Curious, I brought up the subject that had caused it.

"You don't have to be embarrassed about tampons."

Her face, somehow, went even redder.

"I'm not embarrassed," she insisted.

I raised an eyebrow in disbelief. She looked away and hastened to put away her pasta. Still curious, I chose to push the subject.

"Gene and Yasuhara leave their condoms out for all to see."

She turned and glared at me. Her face was somewhere between incredulation, disgust and embarrassment. When she looked away again, I walked over to my armchair and curled up with my book, hopeful that I would not be distracted again until dinner.

The peace and quiet lasted for about half an hour. The downside to drinking a lot of tea is the need to urinate. Annoyed, I went to the toilet.

When I returned, I found that the living room space had been invaded by the rest of the household and my mother. As if this was not bad enough, red-faced tampon girl was sitting in my chair.

The only space left to sit was the rather deflated beanbag.

"Noll, take a seat," my mother said, gesturing. "I thought it would be a good idea for you all to get to know each other."

She stood up from the sofa, allowing the other girl, Gene and Yasuhara space to spread out. Not wanting to have my personal space invaded, I sat down on the beanbag. Gene grinned at my discomfort. Scowling, I waited for my mother to continue.

"So I thought you could play a little game, how about two truths and a lie?"

"Sounds fun," Yasuhara said quickly.

Usually, I liked Yasuhara. We got on well. I considered him to be on the same level as me and Gene when it came to intelligence. And he made my brother happy, even if neither our parents nor his knew about the relationship.

But his eagerness to please my mother grated on my nerves. Luella is a kind woman who would quite happily adopt everyone into her family circle. In fact, I spent half the day waiting for her to adopt these two girls, who, as I heard her muttering several times, definitely needed looking after. Her words, not mine.

Yasuhara began the game.

"Okay, so… One, I study law. Two, I like Justin Bieber music. Three, I have to sleep with socks on."

Luella, satisfied that the game had begun, headed into the kitchen. I watched her as she checked the lasagna in the oven and then started baking. A cake, I presumed, to welcome our new housemates.

It was obvious to me, at least, that this game would end up a team game, the girls versus the boys. So I felt no need to offer up an answer.

"Well they are all possible," the shorter girl muttered, glancing towards her friend.

I sighed, supposing I ought to learn their names. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and texted Gene.

 **Oliver: What are their names?**

Gene felt the vibration of his phone and glared at me. I supposed he knew my question without looking, because he made a careful attempt to address both girls by name.

"You think so Masako?" he teased. "What about you Mai?"

His eyes turned to red-faced tampon girl. Masako and Mai. I could remember that.

"I'm leaning towards Justin Bieber music being true."

Yasuhara, ever the wannabe comedian, gave a gasp of mock horror.

Red-faced tampon girl — no, Mai — gave a laugh.

"Okay so that's the lie," Masako surmised, also giggling. "I'll go next. Umm… One, I immigrated to the UK as a child from Japan, two, I study Media and Business, three, up until the fire, I absolutely hated Mai."

Mai laughed at the last one, but gave no other clue to the lie.

I watched Gene frown as he tried to reason it out. Media and Business was a degree the university ran, so that was possible. But the other two options were equally as possible.

"I cannot believe you hated someone as lovely as Mai," Yasuhara said. "So I think that is the lie."

"Hmm, okay, Gene?" Masako prompted.

"I agree."

"Oliver?"

Oh, they expected me to answer.

"The first one."

"You're right."

"Huh?" Gene looked confused. "You really hated Mai?"

"Yes, we fought like a house on fire." She laughed at her own joke. "And then when our house did catch fire, she helped me get out. I panicked and… Best friends ever since."

"So you did not immigrate from Japan?" Yasuhara prompted.

"No, my parents did while my mother was pregnant with me. But I was born here."

"That's cool."

Gene went next.

"One, I am the older twin. Two, I study biomedical sciences. Three, I once crashed a car into the back garden pond."

I smirked, knowing that two of his statements were technically false, though his birth certificate said otherwise. Gene sent me a grin. I flashed one in return, glad of the little in joke between ourselves.

"I could believe all of them," Masako muttered.

"Yeah but I saw a medicine textbook through his open door," Mai countered.

"Biomedics still read medicine stuff right?"

"Well yeah, half of them are people who failed to get into medicine…"

"But crashing a car into a pond is a bit out there, how did that situation even happen in the first place?" Masako asked.

"He and his brother snuck out of the house, stole the keys and tried to drive the car around the garden," Luella provided with a sigh. "But Gene, in his infinite wisdom, hit the accelerator instead of the break and took a nosedive into the pond."

"You didn't?!" Mai gasped.

"He did," I replied. "The car is still in the pond."

The laughter filled the room until Masako guessed that Gene was not really studying Biomedical Sciences.

"Nope, Medicine all the way," Gene replied with a laugh.

Mai took her turn next.

"One, I am an orphan—" I saw my mother's ears perk up. "—Two, I have never got drunk. Three, I study Criminology."

I suspected that the first statement was true. It would be a poor joke if otherwise. No one else had lied about their studies apart from Gene, but I saw no reason for Mai to do so. But would she try and call everyone's bluff on it straight after Gene had? As for never getting drunk… While unusual for a student, I could believe it.

"You have got drunk," I guessed.

Gene and Yasuhara looked to Mai for her answer and she nodded.

"Once, I hated it," she said. "Never again."

"Fresher's week?" Gene asked.

"Yeah."

They glossed over the whole "being an orphan" topic, for which I was grateful. I did not think I could stand my mother if she got in on it.

"Noll, it's your turn," Gene prompted.

I scowled, hoping they would forget me.

"I study Mathematics." False, I study Physics. "I took Gene's driving test for him." True. "In the third week of last semester, I took one of the lectures as the lecturer failed to show." True.

The lecturer had been awful anyway and he had left his account poorly protected. I had hacked in and read from his notes, supplementing with my own knowledge. Ten minutes in and most of the lecture hall had forgotten I was not their lecturer.

Fortunately, Luella had been washing up as I spoke and so had not heard the statement regarding Gene's driving test over the noise of the pots and pans clanging against each other. Gene, on the other hand, glared at me so forcefully I wondered if he was trying to set me on fire with brain power alone.

Smirking, I turned to the girls, awaiting their answers.

"You can't have taken Gene's driving test, that's illegal!" Mai said.

"Yeah, but taking the lecture? Really?" Masako countered, unconvinced. "I can believe he got away with the driving test. They are identical after all."

"I suppose… So the taking the lecture is the lie?" Mai looked to me.

"No."

"Ha!" She turned triumphantly to Masako. "Told you."

"I do not study Mathematics."

"What?"

Both girls turned around, surprised. They had not even considered it as an option.

"I study Physics."

Before they could express their outrage any further, Luella declared that the lasagna was almost ready and that we should set the table.

* * *

 **Author's note: I have to start off by saying a big thank you to BeeGene, my wonderful beta reader / editor! You should all go and read her stories because they are the epitome of adorableness! Having Bee as my editor person though makes me realise just how silly American English is, and so if you need any British English terms translating, please let me know! (Par example, the 'boot' of a car, is the 'trunk')**

 **Please review!**


	3. Chapter 2

Luella left soon after dinner, allowing the rest of us to finally relax. The two girls went to their new room to unpack. I put the kettle on to make tea. Having not realised how much water was in the kettle when I flicked the switch, I came to the conclusion that I ought to make tea for everyone else to save wasting the hot water.

Gene and Yasuhara were discussing politics when I gave them their drinks.

"What's got into you?" Gene asked.

"Too much water in the kettle."

"I would have made it if you had mentioned it," he said.

I shrugged. Some fact about doing something nice for others so that they owed you came to mind, so I took tea up to the two girls.

As I neared their door, I overheard a little of their conversation.

"... so not only did he stare at them, he made it super awkward by actually telling me not to be embarrassed, right? And then, to make it worse, he was like 'Gene and Yasuhara leave condoms everywhere', like eww!"

"That is too much information."

"Yeah, he's a bit weird."

For some reason unknown to me, the tone of Mai's voice struck a painful chord in my chest. A frown passed over my face, but it was gone by the time I pushed open their door with the two cups of tea.

"Here."

I put them down on the desk, turned on my heel and left before they could thank me.

"Do you think he heard…"

When back downstairs, I collected my own tea from the work surface and took my place in my chair. I scowled when I realised Mai had moved my cushions. Though I moved them back, they still seemed… Wrong.

* * *

"We ought to have a House Meeting about chores," Gene muttered some time later.

I looked up from my book, made eye contact and shrugged.

"Want me to call the girls down?" Yasuhara offered.

"Yeah, let's get this over with."

Ten minutes later and the girls had joined us. This time Mai had been relegated to the bean bag. I should have asked Luella to look into getting us another chair.

"So," Gene began, "Chores rota. I drew this up this morning before you two arrived. So this week, Noll is on bins. That includes taking them out and sorting the recycling. Yasuhara is on bathroom duty, which is just bleach down the toilet and giving everything a quick wipe. I am on kitchen duty, again, just keeping everything clean. Mai, you've got the communal areas, so just vacuum the stairs and stuff. Masako, you've got laundry. We've got a laundry bin in the bathroom that splits everything into lights, coloureds and darks. Then just chuck them through. If anyone's got delicate stuff that can't go in at forty, then it's their own problem. Next week the rota cycles around, I'll pin this up in the kitchen so you can check."

"Any questions?" Yasuhara asked.

"You want me to touch your underwear?" Masako sounded disgusted.

"Well, on our weeks we'll have to touch yours…"

"But that's gross."

I rolled my eyes.

"Masako, it will be clean," Mai pointed out. "All you'll have to do is hang it up to dry."

"And pick it out of the laundry bin to put it in the washing machine!"

Mai sighed.

"We have some marigolds under the sink if that would make you feel better," Yasuhara suggested. "But I haven't wet the bed for several years so you don't have much to worry about."

"Yeah, I mean girl's lady bits secrete more stuff than boys' bits on an average day…" Gene supplied. "So we should be the ones going 'eww'."

Masako chose to shut up at that point.

"Well if that is all, I am going to bed," I said, wanting to escape from any further obligations to socialise.

I had had my fill of socialising for the entire year in this one day. So once in my room, I shut the door and pulled off my shoes. As I had no reason to leave my room again apart from doing my teeth before bed, I changed into pyjamas. Then I sat against the wall on my bed and continued with my book.

The clock struck twelve minutes past eleven when I finished the book.

I added it to the pile of finished books on my already full bookshelf. As I reached for the next of my Christmas bundle, there was a light knock on my door.

Frowning, as I knew Gene would burst in without knocking and Yasuhara would just text me, I guessed that it must be one of the girls. My frown deepened when I realised I had a hope that it was Mai.

Why would I hope that?

Shaking my head to clear these ridiculous thoughts, I stood up to answer it.

Mai stood, dressed in a tiny pair of pyjamas that did not cover her arms or legs, with one arm raised to knock again. Had I taken that long to answer?

"Hi, um, sorry to bother you," she started. "I wanted to apologise for earlier? I know you overheard some of my conversation with Masako and I realise it sounded really harsh. It's been a really stressful couple of weeks and I'm sorry."

I blinked. My earlier momentary hurt had long since faded.

"Well, that's all," she mumbled, clasping her hands together in front of her body and twisting where she stood. "No hard feelings?"

"Okay."

"Thanks, well, night then."

"Goodnight."

She nodded and returned to her room. I watched her walk away. Her short hair swung as she walked. Then I started towards the bathroom to do my teeth, previous plans to start another book gone. Lectures began again on Monday and I knew that being well rested would be beneficial.

* * *

I woke early on Sunday morning and headed straight for a shower. Once I had sufficiently scolded myself under the hot jets of water, I dried myself off. I had no plans to leave the house, so I pulled on sweatpants and a t-shirt.

As I left the bathroom, I walked straight into Mai, who had evidently been waiting for me to finish.

"Sorry," she muttered, standing aside so I could pass her. "Actually, sorry to be a pain but could you show me how the shower works?"

I nodded and followed her back into the bathroom.

"This one is temperature, this one is power," I said, pointing to the two dials in turn. "It takes a minute to warm up."

"Thanks."

I smiled and left her to it.

Only when I made it back to my room did I question the action. I had smiled at her. Why had I smiled at her? The only person I usually smiled with was Gene. Occasionally Yasuhara. Sometimes the rest of my family.

Concerned about this odd behaviour, I crossed the corridor to my brother's room. I entered without knocking to find him in bed, reading.

"Is the bathroom free?" he asked, not looking up from his book.

The title read 'Maestra'. One of his own Christmas presents.

"No, Mai just went in there," I said, shutting the door behind me. "I need some advice."

"Hmm? Really?"

"Yes."

In a way, I was glad he continued reading as I spoke. It made my problem less of an issue. Though I think Gene did it for this reason. So that I would not worry.

"I do not normally smile at people."

"No you do not," he agreed.

"So what does it mean if I smiled at someone I barely know."

Gene looked up from his book.

"Who was it?"

I had hoped he would not ask that question. For some reason I felt my answer opened me up to teasing.

"Mai."

Gene's mouth fell open.

"Really?"

"What does it mean?"

"I think you have a crush on her," Gene said, grinning.

"What? But you said I was asexual," I countered.

"So? You can still be interested in someone romantically even if you are asexual! You might even be demisexual, I hadn't considered that… Hmm."

He closed his book and looked thoughtful.

"I don't want to be romantically interested in her," I deadpanned.

Gene laughed.

"You don't have a choice."

I sighed.

"Will it go away?"

"It might," he answered. "Or you could, you know, ask her out."

I opened my mouth to refute this idea, but my mind shut me up before I managed a single syllable. 'Going out' with a girl meant spending time with her and yet that did not sound as horrific as I would have thought it would have done.

Yet what did I really know about this girl? She was short, studied Criminology and was an orphan. She did not like drinking a lot, so I supposed that was a plus. I did not enjoy alcohol either.

She had apologised to me last night for her hurtful words, despite evidently thinking I was strange. That was more than I got from most people. So I could reason that she was kind.

The idea of getting to know her better was not unappealing.

Another frown crossed my face, before noticing Gene's bemused expression.

"What?"

"Nothing," he said. "I could help you, if you wanted."

I stared at him, unsure how to respond.

"Romance isn't a bad thing Noll," Gene went on. "I know you don't like having a lot of people about but… It might not be a bad thing to let someone else in."

He was worried about me. He always had been when it came to friendship. Gene had started university and made friends with ease. I, on the other hand, had not. But I had not felt any desire to.

I will admit that I much preferred living with Gene than without him. After a few weeks I had also come to appreciate Yasuhara's presence. In a way, I accepted him like a second brother, though I would never trust him as much as I did Gene.

"I'll think on it."

I left Gene's room and returned to my own to collect my phone before heading down for breakfast. The empty kitchen waited in silence for me to enter and ruin the tranquility. I flicked on the kettle, that from the gauge had just enough water in it for a cup of tea and poured myself some porridge oats.

I retrieved the almond milk from the fridge and mixed up the porridge before putting it in the microwave for three minutes. While that cooked, I made a cup of tea.

"Did you just use that hot water?"

I looked around to see Mai, now properly dressed, staring at me in disbelief.

"Yes."

"Eugh."

She picked up the kettle and put some more water in it before setting it off again. She noticed my frown.

"I set it off to boil while I went to get my phone," she explained. "But you got to it first."

"I did not know."

"Yeah."

But her tone, while softer than it had been at first, was not pleasant. Mai was annoyed.

It bothered me more that I did not want her to be annoyed with me more than her actual annoyance did.

"Do you want porridge?" I found myself offering.

"No, I ate before I showered."

Mai made her tea and left.

Sighing, I took my steaming porridge and cup of tea to the table, where I read while eating.

Gene and Yasuhara appeared a while later and sat down opposite me.

"Yes?" I prompted.

"We're going to help you get with Mai," Yasuhara declared.

I blinked. I sighed. I returned to my book.

"No! Noll, listen to us," Gene hissed. "Seriously, we can help you."

"Yes," I agreed, my voice dripping with sarcasm. "Two gay men who have no experience with women are going to be my first choice of help in this matter."

"So you admit you want help?" Gene jumped on my poor choice of wording and I rolled my eyes.

"Besides," Yasuhara cut in before I could defend myself. "We have the internet."

If my faith in their abilities had been lacking before, it was nonexistent after this statement. But I knew that Gene, at least, would not give up until I had let him try and help.

"Fine."

Both of them grinned at me.

"So," Yasuhara went on, "We've done some searching and come up with a few key tips."

"We even looked for ones for shy people, because we thought that might be more appropriate."

"I am not shy."

"I know, but some shy people are just awkward around people, so the same points apply."

"Right."

Yasuhara pulled his phone from his pocket and unlocked it.

"So, you need to be confident."

"Exactly," Gene agreed. "Confidence is sexy— Well, it is, but I realise that is not a huge issue for you… But think about it, if someone is confident, it's a lot easier to have conversation with them."

"I did not realise I came across as if I had no confidence," I muttered dryly.

"Next," Yasuhara went on, ignoring my point, "Is to dress well and to take care of yourself. So style your hair or wear aftershave—"

"Do you own aftershave?" Gene asked.

"No."

"We'll have to get him some," Gene said to Yasuhara. "We'll go shopping later, I need some more socks anyway."

I sighed, waiting for them to continue.

"Eye contact is important."

"Yeah, really important. It shows you are listening to them."

"Ask the other person about themselves, people love talking about themselves—"

"I don't," I countered.

"Fine, most people like talking about themselves," Yasuhara corrected. "But it shows you have an interest in the person."

"If you know any of their favourite things, books or TV or whatever, give it a try as a talking point," Gene suggested. "I watched Death Note just because Yasuhara liked it and it turned out to be pretty good—"

"Yeah but you didn't like that—"

"No spoilers! Noll hasn't seen it."

I did not care about it, but I let them bicker.

"And if worst comes to worst, try a pickup line."

"You are joking," I accused.

"No!" Yasuhara replied, his tone earnest. "Sometimes it can tip the balance."

"Of course." I sighed, wishing I had more tea.

"It's foolproof."

"Says the pair of fools," I muttered. "Enjoy your shopping trip, I have some reading to do."

I stalked past them and up to my room, where I closed the door behind me. I sincerely wished that I had not confided my concerns in Gene. While I knew he meant well, those suggestions had been ridiculous.

Despite that fact, I found myself pulling my laptop onto the bed in front of me and opening up Facebook. It did not take long to find Mai, she was friends with both Yasuhara and Gene already.

Her profile was only half filled in. She had put what she was studying, the town where the university was based, her birthday and so on. She had not posted many statuses. Most of her posts were photos from various events. I noted a charity run, a party and a walking trip amongst them.

It did not surprise me in the slightest that most of Mai's liked interests were crime shows. Criminal Minds, NCIS and Silent Witness were all present. I had seen one of two episodes of these shows, but not enough to make decent conversation.

I continued browsing.

The books she had liked were all fiction, one or two sci-fi volumes I recognised. The films were likewise a wide range with a few known titles.

Deciding that I ought to friend my new housemates, I sent both Mai and Masako friend requests. If they accepted, that would bring my total Facebook friend count to nine.

* * *

 **Author's note: This chapter has my favourite line ever, bonus points to you if you can guess which one it is XD**

 **I forgot to say that I will be updating this every day, unless something bad happens or someone sends me _those_ kind of reviews... You know the ones, don't do it people just don't do it. But you guys are lovely and won't do it, will you :P**

 **Please review!**


	4. Chapter 3

Yasuhara and Gene followed through on their decision to buy me aftershave. They also went ahead and bought me clothing, using Gene as a stand in for myself. I accepted the gifts without fuss. It was not worth it.

As expected, the clothes fit well and the aftershave was not unpleasant.

The two girls offered to cook dinner, but only when I arrived downstairs to eat did I realise no one had told them that I was vegetarian. In fact, vegan would be a more apt description as I rarely ate any animal produce.

This left me with no dinner.

I made myself some porridge and returned to my room with it. There was no reason to stay downstairs when I would be more comfortable in my room. Besides, I needed to pack my bag for tomorrow.

Nothing to do with the fact that I now felt awkward around Mai.

Damn Gene.

* * *

Yet my quiet evening was interrupted an hour or so later by the sound of knocking at the door.

"Come in."

I could not be bothered to get up and answer it.

"I brought you some food," Mai's voice said.

My eyes snapped from my book up to her face. Her face held an attractive quality to it, I supposed. It was symmetrical enough, her skin was clear and her eyes were as bright as her smile.

"Gene felt like an arse for not telling us about you being vegetarian, so we made something for you…"

I took the bowl and peered down at its contents.

"It's just avocado pasta. Gene wanted to put tofu in it but none of us knew how to cook it well, so we just didn't."

"A wise choice. Gene's last attempt to cook tofu involved a pan fire."

Mai laughed nervously and I felt a bubble of happiness growing in my stomach.

"But anyway, sorry again."

I looked back up at her — What was it Gene and Yasuhara had said? Eye contact was important right? — and made eye contact.

"Don't apologise. Gene ought to have remembered. Or I should have said something."

"Still."

Mai gave an odd half smile and ducked out of the room, closing the door behind her. Not wanting to waste the food, I ate it, despite not really being that hungry. The pasta had cooled due to the presence of the avocado, but the taste was fine.

After eating, I finished the chapter of the book I had been reading before Mai interrupted. Later, while I lay in bed awaiting sleep, I cursed Gene for invoking this preoccupation with Mai. I figured if I had not said anything to him, then I would have moved on and forgotten.

Now that I found myself in this situation, I knew I had to deal with it. I had never had a crush before. Even the word 'crush' sounded abhorrent to my ears. Yet my distaste did not make the crush go away.

I decided there and then that I would not change myself for Mai. Yes, I would wear the clothes Gene bought for me, but he usually bought my clothes on my behalf. I did not care for clothes shopping whereas Gene enjoyed it. The arrangement suited us both.

I had to admit that I was not convinced on the benefits of aftershave, as surely deodorant would suffice in regards to person odour? From this uncertainty, I decided to experiment. If after a week I had evidence enough to prove the benefits, then I would make it a habit.

* * *

Sometimes, I detested my brother.

On Monday morning, I descended to the kitchen, fully dressed and desirous of a large cup of tea. My brother, who not only stood between me and the kettle, chose to draw the entire household's attention to the fact I had worn the aftershave he had bought. He did this by invading my personal space and then exclaiming loudly about how nice I smelt.

This in turn caused Yasuhara to do the same.

Scowling, I pushed past the two idiots and filled the kettle. As it boiled and I poured the scalding liquid into my cup, Mai passed me to reach the fridge.

"Is there enough for another cup?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Great."

I handed her the kettle so she could fill her own cup and sipped at my tea. What was next on the agenda? Making por—

"Gene's right, you do smell nice."

I looked around, but Mai had already walked away with her tea cup in hand. Blinking, I turned back to face my cupboard. What had I been thinking? Breakfast. Right. Porridge.

I definitely detested my brother.

* * *

The first day of lectures turned out to be everything I had predicted; dull, repetitive and long. My day did not improve when I arrived home to find someone in my chair. Mai, to be precise. She had curled up with a textbook entitled 'Textbook on Criminology'. What an original title.

Mai evidently noticed my glaring as she looked up.

"Oh, hey," she mumbled, before returning to her book.

I noticed she had moved my cushion again. I scowled, dropped my bag on the end of the sofa and walked into the kitchen area. A large cup of tea was in order.

How was I going to sit in my chair to complete this week's tutorial sheets if Mai occupied my chair? I contemplated asking her to move. She did not know that it was my chair, nor did she know my habits. And if I let it go on for too long, she might gain some illusions regarding her own claims on the chair.

"Is there enough hot water for another cup?" Mai asked, not looking up from her book.

"Yes."

"Fancy making me one?"

No, I did not. Yet my hands worked against me. I picked another cup from the cupboard and made Mai a cup of tea.

I placed both cups of tea down on the little table next to my chair. Confidence, that was another of Gene and Yasuhara's tips, right?

"I usually sit in that chair," I began.

"Hmm."

"I want to sit in my chair."

"Hmm, yeah, thanks for the tea."

Mai, engrossed in her book, was not listening. Sighing, I grabbed the beanbag and for a moment, entertained the idea of picking Mai up and moving her myself. But I did not know her mass and did not want to risk damaging my back.

Dumping the bean bag down on the other side of the little table, I grabbed my bag and slumped down. The taste of tea calmed my aggravation, allowing me to get on with the tutorial sheets.

Gene and Yasuhara returned just after five. They often came home together, one waiting for the other so they could spend the fifteen minutes walk in each other's company. I did not like waiting around in the Physics department. The communal working spaces, while quiet, were always crowded.

I had once asked if I could have a room for my own private study, I knew there were spare offices available, but the department had refused on the grounds that I had no medical reason to ask for one. If they gave one to me, they would then be obliged to offer one to all of the students.

"Aww, look at you two cuties," Gene teased as he entered the room.

Mai looked up at his words and laughed.

"I think calling your identical twin 'cute' is a bit self serving of you," she teased back.

"Are you denying my cuteness?" Gene asked in mock horror.

"You are the cutest cutie patootie I've ever met," Yasuhara said in a baby voice as he pinched Gene's cheek.

"Ouch," Gene complained, rubbing his cheek.

"Aww, I'm sorry!"

Yasuhara gave him a loud, wet and sloppy kiss on the cheek.

"Get a room," Mai muttered. "Some of us are trying to read here!"

"Hmm, sounds like a wonderful idea."

Within a minute they had both disappeared into Yasuhara's bedroom.

"They're gross," Mai said, in a voice that indicated to me that she did not really mind one bit.

I hummed, unsure if she expected a response. She did not say anything else, and I returned my full attention to my work.

Once the tutorial sheet had been completed, I stood up, stretched and took my cup to the kitchen to wash up. Glancing at the clock told me that it would be a good time to make dinner.

Yet no sooner had I started cooking than Masako appeared and roused Mai from my chair. Both girls bundled into the kitchen, rabbiting away, to cook their own dinner.

"Are you going to be using that hob long?" Masako asked me, pointing.

Our cooker had four hobs. I had pans on two of them.

"No."

"Great, then we can use that for the rice while we keep the chicken and veg separate."

I frowned. Yasuhara and Gene would soon want to cook.

"You plan on using three of the four hobs?" I questioned.

"Yeah?"

"That leaves the others with only one hob to cook their own food on."

"Well you're using two of them now," Masako countered. "I don't see why we can't use three between two of us."

"I am using two hobs in the knowledge that my meal takes exactly twelve minutes to cook," I said. "That is not a massive amount of time to be waiting. Yet I can see from your packets that you are cooking brown rice. Brown rice can take up to forty minutes to cook. So I find your meal to be much more inconvenient."

Both girls gaped at me and my statement. Unimpressed faces stared until I looked away. I drained the remaining water from the giant couscous, mixed in the fried vegetables and tofu, and stirred it. I then portioned some into a tupperware box for tomorrow's lunch and tipped the rest in a bowl to eat.

As I left the room, having chosen to eat in my bedroom, I heard Masako and Mai burst into conversation.

"What the hell was that?" Masako's voice exclaimed.

"It's not like we wouldn't move if they asked," Mai countered.

"Exactly! And if they'd said 'oh we want to eat at this time' then we would have accommodated that! What is wrong with that guy…?"

"Well once the chicken's fried up and cooked, we'll take it off the heat so that hob is free if they want it," Mai said. "We can reheat it with the veg just before serving."

Satisfied they would not screw over Gene and Yasuhara, I began my way up the stairs.

After eating, I reflected on Gene and Yasuhara's advice. Though my appearance went unnoticed, the aftershave had not. Being confident, on the other hand, seemed to have only confused Mai. I had no interest in swotting up on her favourite TV series. If she chose to share it with me, then it would provide a much better talking point.

The pieces of advice so far remaining untested were 'asking questions' and 'pick up lines'.

In my twenty years on this planet, I had asked many questions, but I had never used a pick up line. I was sure someone had once used one on me, but I could not remember the wording. It had been crude.

So, like any self respecting millennial, I resorted to Google. I typed 'pick up lines' in, hit enter and clicked on the first link that popped up.

"Are you Cinderella?" I read out, "Because I see that dress coming off at midnight."

My face morphed into a mask of disgust. Scanning the next few, my expectations of finding something usable did not improve.

Until one drew a smirk across my face.

"If Internet Explorer is brave enough to ask you to be your default browser, I'm brave enough to ask you out."

I copied and pasted this into an email and sent it to Lin, a friend of my father's. He had often come around for dinner when I had lived at home. So I was fully aware of his troubles with a mutual female friend of ours, Madoka, from his long and one sided conversations with my mother.

I added 'Thought you'd appreciate this for your efforts, Noll' and send it.

I thought 'Hey, my name's Microsoft. Can I crash at your place tonight?' would have been a contender had Mai and I not lived in the same house.

The next site I tried had each pick up line decorated with topless and heavily muscled men. I could not quite understand the reasoning behind this, were muscles really considered that attractive?

"Do you like raisins? How about a date?" I read out.

I smirked again, thinking that this pick up line would cross off 'questions' from my list of advice to try. I proceeded to be disappointed by a list of so called 'science pick up lines' but they only contained chemistry related ones. My standards had not dropped so far as _chemistry_.

My eyes strayed to a 'Harry Potter pick up lines' link, which I clicked, knowing Gene would appreciate them.

"If I were to look into the Mirror of Erised, I'd see the two of us together," I read.

Yes, that would be about right. If we were together, my brain could be otherwise more pleasantly engaged. Having a crush was proving a lot more effort than I deemed it worth.

"What you up to?"

Gene had crept into my room. I closed the browser.

"Nothing."

"Well that doesn't sound suspicious. But anyway, we're just cooking dinner and the girls were asking if you were always so weird. What did you do?"

I frowned.

"I pointed out to them that using three hobs when I knew you and Yasuhara would want to eat soon would be inconsiderate."

"Right," Gene said.

"You advised me to be confident, so I spoke up."

Gene's frustration, however much he tried to hide it, showed on his face. I had apparently crossed some social line. I sighed.

"I was trying to look out for you," I muttered, looking back at my laptop screen.

I opened a browser with the intention of checking the reading lists for this semester's courses.

"Look," Gene began, "If you'd said that to me or Yasuhara it would have been fine. But in the space of the last fortnight these girls have had their first university exams and their flat burnt down. Until they've settled, they need kindness."

"I made Mai tea when she requested," I retorted. "And I let her sit in my chair."

I chose not to mention that I had implied that I wanted her to move, as she had not listened.

"Yeah and that's good. But both of them went to all girls schools, words are their weapons. Harsh words from you comes across as an attack—"

"I gave them a logical argument."

Gene sighed.

"Okay, but next time just… Just word things how Mum would."

"Then every conversation would end up taking four times as long."

"Yes, but that way we don't end up with two upset housemates."

"Are they upset?" I asked.

"A little. I tried to explain that you did not mean it to sound the way it came out."

My face fell. I did not like Gene having to _explain_ my behaviour. I knew he felt obliged, as he understood my way of thinking, to translate to the rest of the world as if I was a foreigner with strange customs.

"I see."

Gene sensed my discomfort.

"Noll, look, I—"

"It's fine."

Gene gave me one last sympathetic look and left, closing the door behind him. My mood ruined, I went through the motions of locating the reading list.

* * *

The bathroom was in use when I tried to clean my teeth before bed. Knowing my chances, it would be Mai or Masako. A two in three chance to be precise, as Yasuhara used the downstairs bathroom that was opposite his room.

Envisaging that a meeting between myself and one of the girls was not to be welcomed considering my earlier behaviour had upset them, I turned and made to return to my room.

"I've finished!" A voice called after me.

I looked around to see Mai, dressed once again in her tiny pyjamas.

"Oh, I thought you were Gene, sorry."

"So you would not have said anything had you known that it was me?" I asked and Mai flinched.

"Of course I would but—"

"Gene is a more preferable conversation partner."

There was no bitterness in my voice. This was fact.

Mai's mouth opened and closed like a goldfish. I set my face to a neutral expression and strode into the bathroom. After closing the door, I cleaned my teeth, staring at my reflection and wondering if Gene's life would be preferable.

Gene had a way with people. He could converse with anyone and charm them all. I had often imitated his manner at my parent's dinner parties. I could imitate Gene well enough to fool almost anyone.

I had not yet tried this on Yasuhara… Perhaps I would as a test of my abilities.

Spitting out the foam from my mouth, I washed my face off and stared at my own reflection. I could pull it into Gene's smile or Gene's laugh or Gene's frown.

Anger rose in my chest as I thought that if I imitated Gene's manner, I could charm Mai in no time. I forced the thought away and stormed out of the bathroom.

* * *

 **Author's note: Okay so dear guest reviewer who asked about why I have stopped writing A Hint of a Deception... It's because the story ended. Like it was finished... So I stopped writing it...**

 **As for this chapter, please review :)**


	5. Chapter 4

While I may have gone to bed on the wrong side of the bed, I woke on the right one. I had woken up with the plan of finding an appropriate moment to ask Mai a personal question. I had not yet decided _what_ question, but that was a minor issue.

Like the previous day, she joined me in the kitchen as I was making tea. Without waiting for her to ask, I made her a cup of tea.

"Oh, thanks. Look about what I said last ni—"

"Do you like raisins?"

Now was as good a time as any, right?

"What?"

Mai frowned up at me, evidently confused by this question.

"Do you like raisins?"

"Um, they're okay."

Though her answer sounded more like a question than a definite response.

"How about a date?" I asked, steaming on regardless.

"Dates? They're okay. I'm not a huge fan of dried fruit to be honest, though dried pineapple is nice… I prefer fresh fruit when I can afford it. Strawberries are my favourite, what about you?"

Pick up lines were officially useless.

"Raspberries."

"Cool. Well, I need to grab my stuff before uni, see you later. Thanks again for the tea."

And she grabbed something from the fridge before dancing out of the room, her hair shining under the cheap yellow lighting.

I made my porridge and sat at the table, reading the news on my phone. Some new science funding had been allocated to a research lab attached to the university, which pleased me.

"Why do you look so glum?"

Yasuhara.

"Your advice is useless."

"Huh?"

"I have tested all of the advice you have given me and on the whole, it has been useless."

"I don't believe it," he exclaimed, sitting down opposite.

I gave him a summary of my attempts. He listened with a keen interest and sighed pointedly when I finished.

"What?"

"Oliver, it's been what? Two days?"

"So?"

"So it's likely to take more than two days."

It was my turn to sigh.

"It is too much effort," I declared.

"Really?"

"Yes. This entire endeavour has caused me nothing but discomfort."

"So you're giving up?"

"I am refocusing my efforts to more important things."

* * *

The problem was, as I discovered on my walk to university, that the more you try not to think about something, the more you actually think about it. I was sure there was a term for it, but it did not come to mind.

Mai would probably know, psychology was part of criminology.

I cursed my brain and forced myself to mentally run through my schedule. Tuesday was a short day, I only had two lectures. This meant I could beat Mai — there she was again — home and claim my chair back.

I ought to have emailed my mother and requested another chair. But if I had done this, Luella would have insisted on a tortuously long phone call. I could not decide if my chair was worth it…

Perhaps if the chair stealing became a bad habit of Mai's, then I would contact my mother. Or I could get Gene to do it. He would do it.

In the ten minute gap between my two lectures, I received a text.

 **Gene: Yasuhara and I were thinking about have a house meal this Friday to celebrate the end of the first week together. Is this okay with you?**

 **Oliver: I can't stop you doing anything.**

 **Gene: We want you to be part of it. If you don't want to, we won't do it.**

I was not sure if Gene realised how much pressure this sort of statement put on me. If I said 'no', then my housemates miss out on their fun. If I said 'yes', then I would be forced to join in the 'fun'.

 **Oliver: What will you be cooking?**

 **Gene: What do you fancy?**

 **Gene: Other than Mai, of course ;)**

His jokes aside, I recognised that Gene was trying to include me in the house friendship circle. After upsetting the two girls, I supposed I ought to make the effort.

 **Oliver: Tomato based sauces with wraps. You can then make a meat and non-meat version, but it still a communal meal.**

And I had not had wraps for a while. My mother would be proud of me for suggesting a variation in my diet.

 **Gene: Ooh great idea! I haven't had those in ages! We were thinking ice cream for pudding?**

 **Oliver: Fine, get strawberries to go with it.**

 **Gene: Strawberries?**

 **Oliver: Fruit is healthy.**

Gene did not question this, and my next lecture started.

* * *

That evening I was unfortunate enough to be at the dining room table when Gene suggested the house meal to the rest of our housemates. Both girls looked straight at me and then back at Gene with one thing on their mind.

"I'll be sorting the food out so if you have any dietary requirements, please let me know," Gene said, smiling. "Unless you guys don't want to join us?"

"No, we do," Masako said, answering on behalf of both females.

"Ironic process theory," I blurted.

Finally, the name of the thing about not thinking about a topic only making it come to mind more had returned to the forefront of my mind. The word had fallen from my mouth without permission and had in turned caused the rest of my housemates to turn around and stare at me.

"The white bear problem?" Mai questioned.

I nodded in response.

"What about it?" Gene asked, evidently confused.

"The name had slipped my mind, it was bothering me. I just remembered."

Mai laughed. I supposed there was something amusing about forgetting the name of the theory about things coming to mind. I ignored the bubble of happiness in my stomach. I ignored the second bubble that grew as Mai smiled at me.

"Okay so we're all settled for the meal on Friday?" Gene said, bringing the discussion back to some resemblance of sense. A general murmur of agreement spread around the room.

"Oh, while we at at," Masako interjected. "Mai and I need the kitchen on Saturday to bake."

"Oh yeah! We're doing this charity thing on Sunday and we've been tasked with making cakes. We'll try and time things to be out of the way during meal times, but if it wouldn't be too much of a problem then we'll be hogging the kitchen."

"Will the kettle still be accessible?" I asked.

The ability to make myself a hot cup of tea was vital to my well being.

"Yeah, I'm sure we can make sure it is," Mai said, laughing again.

The bubble grew.

"Good."

Then I saw Masako roll her eyes and the bubble popped.

* * *

Wednesday afternoons at British universities was traditionally reserved for sporting activities. So while masses of students trooped off to the gym, sports halls and pitches, I went home. Yasuhara and Gene, I knew, went to play badminton. They were not on the university team, but played for fun in the weekly doubles tournaments.

As neither of the girls appeared within the first half an hour of me being at home, I predicted that they too participated in some form of sport. I decided to use the peace and quiet to clean my room and other messes I had made.

I detested cleaning, but Gene had threatened to complain to Luella if I did not pull my weight. So I checked my shelf in the fridge for gone off food, cleaned a few tea cups and restocked the tin of tea bags on the counter from the bulk bought box hidden in one of the lower cupboards.

The area around my chair was immaculate, but I straightened my pile of books and picked up two to return to the bookshelf in my room. Once I had returned those, I popped to the loo before searching around my room for dirty washing.

Somehow, I did not hear the front door open and close. Nor did I hear anyone come up the stairs.

I did, however, hear the sound of running water as I neared the bathroom with an armful of dirty laundry. Had I left the tap running? I frowned.

I eased a finger out from the bundle of clothes and pulled open the door. I stepped through the doorway to be greeted by a high pitched scream.

I winced, almost dropping my laundry. I saw a flash of pale skin hastily covered by a bright red towel.

"What the hell are you doing?!"

Mai. Of course. This girl was plaguing me.

"Putting my washing in the laundry bin."

She stood in front of me, next to the shower, with a pile of clothes at her feet. I had caught her just as she had stripped off. Her face had turned a familiar shade of red.

"But! But!"

She floundered for words.

"There is a working lock," I pointed out. "I would advise using it unless you want to be walked in on."

"The shower was running!" Mai countered.

"I thought I had left the tap on."

"Shower's sound completely different to taps!"

"Either way I had to check. To leave it would be wasteful."

Mai pouted at me for a full ten seconds.

"Look, just do your laundry and go," she said finally.

I shrugged, dumped my laundry and turned to leave.

"If you don't want to use the lock, perhaps stick a sign on the outside of the bathroom door. I did not want to walk in on you," I said.

"Oh my g— Just get out."

I left the bathroom and returned to my room. As I knew the location of some blutack, I wrote a sign and attached it to the bathroom door.

It read: _Mai is showering and does not lock the door, please check before entering._

I returned to my room to begin sorting this semester's notes out. If I sorted the system out early, it would make revision easier.

As I hole punched my notes and placed them in the relevant files, I pondered Mai's anger. If anything, I should have been the one who had been upset. I held no desire to see her naked or make her uncomfortable. It had been her own lax behaviour that had caused that entire ordeal.

Then a frustrated outcry reached my ears. Curious, I closed the final file and walked to my door. I opened it to find Mai standing there with one hand up, preparing to knock.

"Yes?"

"What is this?"

She pushed a piece of paper into my chest. I took it from her and saw the note I had written.

"It is a warning to anyone else. So that no one else walked in on you," I explained.

"I remembered to lock it this time!" she fumed, her cheeks inflating like a pufferfish.

"So you have a success ratio of fifty percent," I pointed out. "I do not think those odds are good enough to risk the lack of signage."

"I have remembered every other time!" she insisted.

"None of that was documented. Scientifically, I shouldn't even allow your supposed success just now in my assessment as I did not verify it myself. That would make your success rate zero."

"I am not going to inform you every time I want to shower so you can check whether or not I have locked the door! It's weird!"

"Then your reported success rate remains at zero."

"But— It's just— You realise how creepy that sounds, right?"

I frowned.

"How is me maintaining the rigorous standards science has come to expect creepy?"

"Because—" She struggled for words. "I don't want you thinking about me in the shower!"

"Why would I think about you in the shower?" Then it hit me, she thought I was being perverted. "I am not a pervert."

She looked taken aback.

"What? Am I not attractive enough for you to think about in the shower?" she asked, her voice full of aggression.

"I see nothing wrong with you aesthetically."

"Then why wouldn't you— Hang on, are you gay too? Like Gene?"

Her frown had returned.

"No. But your hair is dripping onto the carpet and your clothing. You should probably dry it."

"What?"

"Your hair," I said, pointing. "Your t-shirt will get damp and make you cold. It's unwise in at this time of year."

"Yeah well," she began, her tone defensive. "My flat burnt down two weeks ago so I don't have a hairdryer."

"Why didn't you say something?" I asked. "Gene has one."

"Why on earth does he have one?"

"He went through a phase where he decided to grow his hair longer, when it reached his shoulders, my mother insisted he had a hair dryer."

"I don't believe you," Mai said, now laughing.

It amused me how quickly she perked up.

"There are pictures on Facebook," I said. "If you go far enough back on his profile, I'm sure you'll find them. My mother liked it when Gene grew his hair, it stopped her confusing us."

I stepped past her and walked down to Gene's room.

"Won't it be lock—"

I opened Gene's door, which was unlocked, and entered. He was another person who failed to lock doors. Though I knew he left the bathroom door unlocked so that Yasuhara could join him.

"Won't he mind you going through his room?" Mai asked, scurrying after me.

"If he does then I will explain that it was to stop you getting pneumonia and as a doctor in training, he can hardly argue with that."

I found the hairdryer in his bottom drawer, next to a bottle of lube. I chose not to mention this to Mai.

"Here," I said, passing the hairdryer over.

She took it with a smile, completely distracted from the conversation earlier.

"Thanks, I'll return it after I've used it."

"Gene doesn't use it, you may as well keep it," I muttered. "I doubt he will mind."

"I'll check with him when he gets back," she said. "Well, I should go and dry my hair then. Thanks again."

She skipped away to her room. I watched her go, then shut Gene's bedroom door behind me and headed downstairs to read.

Some time later, Mai appeared downstairs and put the kettle on. I did not ask for a cup, yet she made me one anyway.

"As thanks for finding the hairdryer."

I did not think that action had been worthy of making an effort to thank me, but I was not going to complain about a cup of tea, so I nodded and returned to my book.

Although my eyes scanned across the page, my mind had wandered elsewhere. I knew from Gene's explanations of asexuality that I did not feel sexual attraction, but that did not stop me from trying to work out what such an attraction felt like. From Mai's earlier comments, she expected me to derive some form of pleasure from imagining her in the shower.

Yet the only positive emotion I could feel in regards to her showering was gratitude that she valued her cleanliness. I had never had a great appreciation for art, so my views towards Mai aesthetically were rather dull. She was not unpleasant to look at. I supposed my views on aesthetics were rather binary; Mai was good, my father's favourite orange and green tie was bad. But I would not want to sit and watch Mai in the shower purely to appreciate her appearance.

I sighed.

And the idiots said Physics was hard…

* * *

 **Author's note: Thank you all for your reviews! I really appreciate it!**

 **Please review :)**


	6. Chapter 5

The meal on Friday turned out to be okay. Gene and Yasuhara supplied most of the conversation, leaving me to listen. I think Gene had planned things that way and I did not complain.

He had surprised me by only making a vegan option. Gene had bought soya mince to make a bolognese style sauce. He then supplied wraps, extra vegetables and cheese to those who wanted it.

And, as I requested, he provided strawberries for dessert. He had bought the dairy free ice cream that he knew I would eat. There were then bowls of oreos, strawberries and other sweets for the rest of us to construct our desserts with.

Bar the cheese and a few of the sweets, everything had been vegan and no one had complained.

Mai, as I expected, dived on the strawberries before Gene had finished setting them down on the table. It tempted me to take a few just to see her pout.

When I had finished my small portion of ice cream, I scooped up the last strawberry with my spoon. Mai, who had been sitting opposite me, looked up. Her eyes flickered between me and the strawberry.

I cocked my head to one side, curious to see what she would do. Gene, Yasuhara, and Masako were still eating and thus oblivious to mine and Mai's interaction.

Mai's brown eyes widened and her lips pressed together in an undeniable pout. She resembled a puppy that had been caught doing something wrong.

I pushed the spoon towards her with a raised eyebrow, silently asking 'do you want it?' but guilt only spread across her visage. I pressed the issue, holding the spoon out so that all she had to do was reach forwards and take the strawberry in her mouth.

Her eyes ceased in their flickering. Mai held my gaze, a slight crease between her brows. Then she caught the spoon in her mouth and took the strawberry from it.

Somewhere along the line, we had caught Gene's attention.

"Is Mai incapable of feeding herself?" he asked.

Mai, still munching on the strawberry, matched its colour.

"Apparently so," I replied, smirking.

Sniggers spread around the table, but Mai did not take them lying down.

"So Gene I heard you had long hair when you were younger?"

Yasuhara choked on his ice cream.

"You told her!" Gene accused me.

"She needed a hairdryer, I gave her yours and had to explain the circumstances," I replied calmly.

"You _had_ to explain them? Really?"

Now everyone, apart from Gene, was laughing at his expense.

"I did look for the photos," Mai said.

"I deleted them all," Gene interjected. "There is no evidence. I can deny it all!"

"I'm sure Luella has a copy," I mentioned. "You have her email address right?" I asked Mai, who nodded, knowing it would infuriate my twin.

"Screw Mai seeing them, how come I have never seen these photos?" Yasuhara exclaimed. "I thought you shared everything with me!"

I could tell he was not really hurt by Gene's keeping the photos, but playing for the crowd, as was his manner.

"You would think so badly of me!" Gene wailed, his face torn in excruciating pain.

"I showed you my wonky nipple!"

"I know!"

Both girls squealed in disgust and covered their ears.

The group descended into muffled laughter. Not long after, Yasuhara and Gene declared that as they had cooked, they did not need to clean up, leaving me and the girls to do so.

I began on the washing up without being asked, allowing the girls to bring me the plates and later to dry and put them away. I noticed that Mai gave me several odd looks. I endeavoured not to return them, instead focusing on the task in hand.

"Right, all done," Masako declared. "Oliver if you just take the bins out, then the kitchen is set ready for tomorrow. Mai, do you want to check that we've got everything?"

"What? Oh right, yeah, let's do that now."

Recognising I was no longer wanted, I made a beeline for my chair. Once again I said with my nose in my book and my mind somewhere completely different.

Were Mai's actions those of some form of attraction? Or did she still think me weird and creepy? It bothered me that I found her opinion mattered. Yet my skills at reading people left a lot to be desired.

"Masako, do you have a bowl?"

My ears picked up on their conversation unwillingly.

"Yeah, but it's not huge."

I sighed and mentally ran through the locations of the baking supplies in the kitchen.

"Under the sink, there should be two ceramic bowls suitable for baking," I said.

I heard a cupboard open and close.

"Thanks," Masako replied.

"You don't strike me as a baker, are these—"

"My mother seemed to think that Gene and I would bake while at university, so kitted us out with the relevant equipment. I'm sure you'll also find the scales and baking sheets if you look in the cupboard left of the sink."

"Can we borrow them?" Mai asked, the hope evident in her voice.

"I would not have told you about them if you could not borrow them."

"Thanks!"

I returned to my book.

* * *

After breakfast on Saturday I soon realised that avoiding the kitchen would be the best plan of action. Mai and Masako had been cooking for less than ten minutes and were already lightly covered in flour and split half a packet of sugar on the floor.

Gene and Yasuhara had also come to the same conclusion. They were more sensible. They left the house.

I retreated to my room and set to the task of reviewing this week's notes. Usually I would follow this would a review of the previous week's notes, but as we had only completed one week of the semester, I had nothing else critical to do.

I had left my current book downstairs. But downstairs also meant I could get a cup of tea. Mentally I planned the quickly way to get down to the kitchen, make tea and escape back to my room.

The first half of my planned worked perfectly. I made it into the room without being noticed. The reason for the girls not noticing my presence were the tears streaking down Masako's face. Or perhaps it was the burnt pancake looking thing on the work surface. Or maybe the splattered mixture on the floor.

And they had moved the kettle. I had to pass through the disaster zone to make tea. Coming quickly to the conclusion that tea might not be worth it, I made to grab my book before leaving.

Unfortunately, Mai spotted me.

"Do you want tea?" she asked. "I'll clear this up and…"

She, like Masako, looked on the verge of tears. My mother, who I recognised as an emotional person, never became this upset over baking.

"I will survive without."

I frowned at the situation.

"Right, yeah. Well…"

"Who taught you how to bake?" I asked.

"The internet," Mai responded, as Masako showed no inclination to speak.

A look of distaste formed on my face that I knew came from my mother's rigorous insistence that both Gene and I would learn to bake.

"Start cleaning up this mess," I instructed, pulling my mobile phone from my pocket and unlocking it. I pulled up Gene's contact details and hit 'phone'.

"Hey Noll, what's up?"

"Are you busy?"

"Not really, why?"

"There are two crying females in the kitchen. Their baking is atrocious and Luella cannot get here in time."

He knew what I was implying. I heard a loud sigh.

"Do we need any ingredients?"

I repeated the question to the girls, who nodded.

"Just get enough basic cake ingredients for…" I looked again to the girls for an answer. Mai held up five fingers. "Five cakes."

Gene hung up.

By the time Gene and Yasuhara got back, the three of us had managed to clean up the kitchen and dispose of Mai and Masako's disasters.

I let Gene take care of the teaching aspect of the task, while I set about making repeated mixtures to be put in the oven while Yasuhara was in charge of the timing. Several hours later, I left Mai and Masako to decorate the cakes.

The cakes we had made were uniform and unburnt, a vast improvement on the previous monstrosities.

Before I could escape to my room, the front door opened and in burst my mother.

"Noll! Where is everyone?"

"Kitchen."

"Great, I bought you all a new chair!" Luella declared. "Where are my strapping young men to carry it in?"

I decided that I was most definitely not a 'strapping young man', so started towards the stairs. My mother had other ideas.

"Do I smell baking? Noll, you will join us all right now."

I scowled and followed her into the kitchen.

"Mum," Gene said. "What are you doing here?"

"I brought you a new chair, like you requested. It's a slightly different model to the existing one, but I thought it was better than nothing. It's in the car, I need help to bring it through."

I took a seat in my chair and picked up my book.

"We'll go and get it, girls are you okay decorating?"

"Yeah we'll be fine," Masako insisted, her tears long since gone.

"You're baking?" Luella asked. "You should have said, I would have come over."

"They've been helping us for this charity thing we're doing tomorrow. We have to bring the cakes," Mai explained. "Masako and I made a right mess of it earlier. I think if Oliver hadn't come down when he did we might have ended up setting the kitchen on fire."

"Noll helped you bake?"

"Yeah."

"See Noll! Didn't I tell you baking was a useful skill?" Luella cooed.

I ignored her.

My mother bustled into the kitchen to admire the handiwork of the cakes while Gene and Yasuhara lugged the new chair in. They set it down next to my chair. It looked identical to mine apart from the colour, red instead of blue.

Luella, after gushing about the cakes for half an hour, declared that she would cook dinner for us all. She did not leave until after the meal and only then was I finally able to escape to my room.

Yet I was not granted the peace I wished for. Gene entered my room five minutes later to demand yet more of my attention.

"Mum knows."

"Our mother knows a lot of things."

"She knows you like one of the girls. She asked me which."

"And you said?"

"Nothing, of course."

"How did she come to this conclusion?"

"I think her words were 'Noll doesn't do anything for anyone he doesn't like and he baked for those girls, so he must like at least one of them'."

"I see. I suppose it was you that asked for a second chair?"

"Yeah, I mentioned it. I didn't know she was coming today though."

I expected Gene to leave at this point, but he did not.

"She wants me to set you up with 'whichever girl it is he likes'."

I rolled my eyes.

"Luella can be so tiresome," I muttered. "You should have told her the truth. Those girls were between me and tea."

Gene gave half a laugh.

"But that isn't the truth though, is it?" Gene prompted.

"It happened," I stated, "Does it really matter why?"

Gene sensed my patience was not to be tested, before he left me alone. Alone with nothing but my thoughts.

The problem had been that the girls had needed to bake cakes and did not know how to bake. I had the solution. Physicists solved problems. Had there not been a time deadline on the process, I would have left Gene to teach them without helping.

His accusations of me doing it purely because I had a ridiculous crush on Mai were…

I had a book to read. I forced my eyes to focus on the page in front of me and reread the same sentence until it was time for sleep.

* * *

Mai and Masako were not in the house for the whole of Sunday due to their charity thing.

When Monday rolled around, I did not make Mai tea. In fact, I avoided all of my housemates. I cleaned the bathrooms, as was my duty for this week, on Wednesday afternoon with the aim of finishing before any of them returned from their sporting activities.

I realised as I wiped the shower down that I had never found out what sport it was that Mai partook in. Then I decided that I did not care.

"Are you almost done?"

Mai. Of course it would be Mai.

"I need to put bleach down the toilet," I replied from the interior of the shower.

But Mai walked straight in, picked up the bleach and did it for me.

"I suppose you'll do a better job of this bathroom that I ever will," Mai said. "I can only just reach the top of the shower…"

"I am sure if you go to the children's section of Wilko's, they will have stools that you could stand on."

"Oh ha ha," she said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "A short joke, how original. What's next? Something about how flat chested I am?"

"Is that something you are self conscious about?" I asked.

"Not really. I have a friend whose boobs are so big she fell over and knocked herself out with them once…"

"That is unfortunate."

"Yeah."

I stepped out of the shower and collected the cleaning supplies together. Mai handed me the bleach. I had no reason to remain in the bathroom. Mai wanted it to shower. I could smell her sweat. Yet I did not move. Not yet.

"Don't forget to lock it this week," I said in a quiet voice.

Mai laughed.

"I remembered last week! Well, the second time…"

I gave her something that resembled a smile and left. After returning the cleaning supplies to the cupboard where we kept them in one corner of the kitchen, I thought about going and testing to see if Mai really had locked it this week.

But I was supposed to be ignoring her. Ignoring her until her presence no longer affected me. Until it did not bother me if she was here or not and I did not want to make her tea.

Yet I liked her presence. I liked teasing her. I liked her pout. I liked her cheeks when she blushed. I wanted to know more. I wanted to be able to talk to her like I did Gene or Yasuhara. I wanted her good opinion.

It was not until Mai exited the bathroom and found me stood at the top of the stairs lost in my conflicting thoughts that I realise how long I had been standing there.

"Are… Are you okay?" she asked, her face a mask of concern.

"Yes."

"Are you sure? You look a little out of it."

"I am fine."

I shook myself out of my reverie and strode into my room, shutting the door behind me.

There were times I really wished I were a robot capable of deleting. Or at least disable it. Or have a virus checker trap it in a folder never to be accessed again.

But no. Five minutes later Mai knocked at my door with a cup of tea and a wish that I would feel better soon. I assured her once again that I was fine with a pang of pain in my chest at the look of worry on her face.

The cyborg revolution could not come fast enough.

* * *

 **Author's note: I love the ending to this chapter, it makes me happy. Anyway, I am off to look at places to live for when I start my new job! Wish me luck and please review!**


	7. Chapter 6

Never before had Valentine's Day been an issue for me. Once or twice I had received Valentines at school, but they had been meant for Gene. I passed them along like any other piece of misdelivered mail and moved on with my life.

This year, my home would be home to a house party on the weekend after Valentine's Day.

This had been Yasuhara's idea. As if he needed an excuse to romance my brother. Initially, Gene had been against the idea, but after a quiet conversation with Yasuhara that I could not hear, he suddenly sounded all for the idea.

In other words, they were up to something.

I figured I could deal with whatever they threw at me and was more concerned with my chair. The idea of two strangers I barely knew making out on my chair rubbed me the wrong way. So I made that my condition of allowing the party to occur.

Gene and I carried it up to the safety of my room two hours before the party was due to start. I quite liked having the chair in my room.

It was only as the guests began arriving that I realised I had not brought the kettle up too. Though to gain a water supply I would have to leave the safety of my room.

I settled into my chair with a book, prepared for an evening of bad music blaring from below when I heard a knock.

"It's just me Noll."

Gene, what could he want? He had guests now surely?

I opened the door an inch to answer him, standing with my foot blocking it from opening any further.

"Noll, look, I need a favour."

"What?"

"Mai doesn't like these sorts of parties either so perhaps she could hide with you."

Gene took advantage of my surprise to force the door open. He pushed a confused Mai in and pulled the door shut. I immediately tried to open the door, but he had jammed it somehow.

We were locked in.

I scowled and considered the most appropriate insult for my twin.

"I'm sorry, I didn't ask for this," Mai's timid voice said from behind me.

She was still dressed in her day clothes.

"I know you didn't."

"I just asked if it wouldn't go on too long so that I could get some sleep and Gene was all 'don't worry, I've got it sorted' and then brought me here…"

"You may as well make yourself comfortable," I said. "You're welcome to read any of my books as long as you don't bend the pages or break the spines."

I sat back down and picked up my book. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Mai perch on the edge of my bed and scan my bookshelf.

"Why did you bring that chair up?" she asked.

"It's my chair. I don't want strangers fornicating on it."

"Oh, right. Yeah I can see why that would be gross."

There was a silence for a few minutes.

"Do you have any fiction books here?"

I did not have to think about my answer.

"No."

"Right. Do you have Netflix?" she asked.

"If you are suggesting that we 'Netflix and Chill' I would rather not."

"What? No! I just wanted to watch something rather than try and read a Physics textbook. How do you even know what that is?"

"Why do you think I would not know what that is?"

"You just don't strike me as the type."

"Quite, but Gene is my brother and Yasuhara is his boyfriend."

Mai laughed.

I put down my book with a sigh and opened my laptop. After typing in my password, I opened up a browser and hit the 'n' key. Chrome autocompleted the rest of the Netflix address and it soon loaded.

"You can use my account," I told Mai as I passed her the laptop and a pair of headphones.

"Thanks." She leant back and started scrolling. "Why are all your recommendations scientific documentaries?"

"That's all I use it for."

"Right…"

So we sat in silence. I read. Mai watched something on my laptop. Despite the raucous noises downstairs, there was a sense of peace in my room. I forgot the party after a while, contented as I was in the presence of Mai and a good book.

I did not realise how late it had got until Mai slumped sideways on my bed and in doing so, pulled the headphones — that had fallen from her ears — out of the slot. Loud voices filled the room and Mai bolted awake.

"Wha—"

Mai wiped her eyes and paused the TV show.

"Sorry."

"Quite alright," I replied. "It is getting late."

"When do you think they'll finish? I want to go to bed," Mai groaned.

I texted Gene.

 **Oliver: When will you be finishing?**

"I too want to sleep."

Mai rubbed her eyes again and yawned. Her yawn infected me.

 **Gene: Not for a while yet! You're stuck with Mai ;)**

"Gene has no intention of releasing us any time soon," I reported. "I am vetoing every suggestion of another party."

"Same!" Mai groaned and pushed the laptop away from her. "I'm so tired…"

I sighed. Mai had a problem and I, as a physicist, wanted to solve that problem.

"Then sleep," I said. "I will not disturb you."

"But it's your bed," Mai argued.

"Yes, and I am offering it to you."

"But where will you sleep?"

"In this chair," I said.

"But I'm smaller than you, it would make more sense for me to take the chair."

"But this is my chair."

"It isn't your chair," Mai said, rolling her eyes. "The chairs are for everyone."

"No. This is my chair."

"I've sat in it."

"Much to my disgust."

"You can't just calm a chair."

I raised a challenging eyebrow at Mai, who yawned, causing me to yawn and the argument died.

"Do you want to borrow some pyjamas?" I offered. Jeans were not the most comfortable thing to sleep in after all.

"Okay," Mai replied, yawning again. "I'm so tired."

I got up from my chair and found a clean pair of pyjamas from my set of drawers. I passed them to Mai and then turned away so she could change.

"Thanks," she mumbled, perching once again on the edge of my bed.

I grabbed my own pyjamas, figuring that I too should change. I heard a squeak from behind me. Mai had hurriedly covered her eyes. I ignored her and stripped down to my boxers before pulling on my pyjamas.

"Are you covered?"

"Yes."

Mai uncovered her eyes and rolled up the long sleeves.

"We could… We could just share the bed right?" Mai suggested. "I don't fidget a lot. And it's not like we'd do anything…"

She trailed off, her face going red. She noticed my frown and went on.

"I mean I'm not going to jump you or anything! We could just sleep and happen to be in the same bed."

"Please don't jump on me."

Mai's face began to flush red.

"I didn't mean it like—"

"I know what you meant."

"Oh…"

Mai looked down at her feet. Her toes only just poked out from the trouser leg.

"Well move over then," I said. "Unless you want to sleep on this side of the bed?"

"Oh, right, um, I don't mind."

She shuffled over and slipped her feet under the duvet. I flicked on the bedside light, turned off the main light and joined her.

"I don't snore," Mai insisted. "Do you?"

"I don't know," I replied, flicking the bedside light off.

I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to assess what Gene's intended outcome had been before he had locked us both in my room. He knew that we would not end up 'making out' as he so crudely put it.

"I'm really sorry about this," Mai mumbled. "If I'd known Gene was going to do this, I wouldn't have made a fuss."

He must have known that we would have to share the bed. He also knew that I was not particularly fond of large quantities of intimacy. But I do not think he would want to make me suffer. So he must have thought these confined circumstances would improve my relationship with Mai.

"I wish he'd let us out, I don't like not brushing my teeth before bed. It's weird."

But so far, we had only sat in a comfortable silence with our respective interests. I had found the evening quite pleasurable, but I could not speak for Mai.

"You accepted my friend request on Facebook," I said.

"I did," she agreed. "So?"

"Masako did not."

"Masako doesn't really use Facebook a lot, she prefers Tumblr."

"I see."

"Don't take it personally," Mai went on, as if worried for my happiness. "I, uh, I noticed that you only had like eight friends on Facebook…"

"That's correct."

"Why so few?"

"Why do you have so many? Do you really talk to several hundred people on a regular basis?"

"Well, no," Mai admitted. "But I like to keep up with what everyone's doing."

"I only 'keep up' with those I care about."

"So… You care about me?" she asked slowly.

Glad that my room was dark, I spat out an answer.

"Yes, you are my housemate, it is natural to be concerned with your wellbeing."

"Oh."

I sensed disappointment in her voice.

"What?"

"Do you consider me and Masako as your friends?" Mai asked, her voice troubled. "Like real friends? Not just on Facebook. I know Gene said that you were a bit weird and awkward and I get that, it's fine, but you're so hard to read sometimes and I don't know if you actually like us or if you're just tolerating us and…"

She trailed off, evidently thinking she had said too much.

I chose my words carefully.

"After Gene and Yasuhara, I suppose you are the person I have become closest to recently. We share some interests after all."

"Like what?" Mai asked, her tone much lighter now. "Tea?"

"Tea is vitally important to everyday life," I stated and she laughed.

"And I suppose you're as fed up with Gene and Yasuhara being all over each other all the time?"

"It does get tiring at times. Before you and Masako joined us, they often forgot I was in the room. It is rather disconcerting seeing someone who looks identical to yourself doing things like that…"

"Eww, that's so gross."

Mai giggled and I felt her shift under the duvet. The bed creaked.

"It's getting cold now, huh," Mai commented a few minutes later.

"Yes, that happens at night. You see the sun is currently shining on the other half of the planet and so this side is just radiating all of its heat into space with only a thin atmosphere to stop us all from freezing to death."

"Cheerful."

"If you are cold, I have a spare blanket—"

"It's fine," she insisted. "Just got to warm up the duvet that's all. I have really bad circulation… When I exercise, only my face goes red and the rest of my body is as pale as normal."

"That's unfortunate."

"Yeah, it's not exactly attractive."

"No one looks attractive when exercising," I pointed out.

"Not true, there's a girl in my zumba class that I go to on Wednesdays and I swear she is the most beautiful thing. She bounces around and dances and everything and her hair remains perfect and…"

Zumba. The aerobics dance thing?

"Perhaps she is not human," I suggested.

"Definitely an alien," Mai agreed before yawning.

"You should sleep."

"But you—" She yawned again, "— made a joke."

"That doesn't mean you don't need sleep."

"Hmmm."

Mai wriggled and pulled the duvet around her tighter. I turned onto my side and closed my eyes.

"Oliver?" Mai whispered.

"Yes?"

I heard yet another yawn.

"I'm glad we're friends," she murmured.

I smiled into the darkness, and fell asleep.

* * *

Somehow, I think I knew what would have happened before I woke the next morning. Though I went to sleep on my side, I woke up lying on my front, as per usual.

However, I had a warm something attached to my side. So much for Mai 'not fidgeting'. Yet her touch did not give me as much discomfort as I expected. Perhaps this was because she was still asleep, or at least she sounded like it from her soft, shallow breaths.

I endeavoured not to disturb her, knowing she would be embarrassed at her behaviour when she did wake.

Yet our peace did not last long. My bedroom door opened a few minutes after I woke with a round of sniggers.

"Aww, they're so cute," I heard Gene squeal.

I grunted in reply and the door slammed shut, causing Mai to jump awake.

"What? What was that?"

"I think they are releasing us," I replied, twisting over.

Mai rubbed her eyes and stared down at me.

"Was I… Hugging you?"

"Yes."

"Oh jeesh, I am so sorry!"

"I would have asked you to move if you were causing me any discomfort," I told her. "You said yourself that it was cold last night, it is natural to seek warmth."

"Yeah…" Mai pushed the duvet off of her. "I should get out of here if we're released then. Thanks and sorry again."

She left the room so fast, I was surprised that she did not trip over the length of my pyjamas.

I turned back over and slumped into my pillow with a yawn. Her hasty departure was no doubt due to her own embarrassment. She had ensured me she would not 'jump me' and then had ended up hugging me.

"So, how was last night?" Gene's voice asked.

I did not bother to move before answering.

"I am vetoing every party you ever organise again."

"That bad?"

I felt the bed beside me depress.

"Yes, your music was too loud."

"Oh, well we had to keep up pretenses."

Pretenses? I sat up and fixed my brother with a glare.

"What?"

"Well we organised cabs to send everyone off to a club around eleven and then just kept the music on to fool you and Mai," Gene said. "Oh, and to cover any noise Yasuhara and I were making…"

I scowled. Had I been prone to violence, I would have hit him.

"So Masako is in on it?"

"Yeah, but only to ensure Mai is actually happy," Gene said. "She couldn't give two hoots about you I'm afraid."

"Understandable. I would like to point out that tying my door to your own was a fire hazard. I presume that's how you prevented our exit?"

"Yeah, but we would have saved you if there was a fire," Gene assured me with an airy wave.

"Yes, because drunkards think of their locked up brothers first in a case of emergency."

"Stop being a drama queen."

"I hope you've cleared up downstairs. I am not contributing to any clean up efforts," I stated.

"Yep, yep, we've been working on that all morning! And to thank you for your kindness, Yasuhara, Masako and I are taking both you and Mai for dinner!" Gene told me brightly.

A little voice in the back of my mind whispered 'it's a trap'. And only later did I wish I had listened to it.

* * *

 **Author's note: Happy Valentine's Day to you all! I'm sorry, but I love the forced to share a bed trope!**

 **Please review :)**


	8. Chapter 7

Masako pulled out of the dinner about half an hour before we had to leave for this 'thank you' dinner with the excuse of a last minute assignment that she had forgotten about. Mai appeared genuinely upset that her friend could not come. But Masako assured Mai that she should have a good time without her.

So the four of us walked to the restaurant that Gene had picked, an Italian. A safe option, everyone liked something that an Italian restaurant served.

The evening was cool, as expected of February, and so no one talked much. Mai gave the odd squeal about how cold her nose or hands were. Yasuhara and Gene mumbled back and forth in voices so low I could not hear.

As we neared the restaurant, Yasuhara and Gene started to fall behind. In the end, Mai and I waited outside the doors for them to catch up.

"Sorry guys, I just remembered I need to grab something from the chemist," Yasuhara said by way of a greeting.

"But it's Sunday, it'll be shut by now," Mai pointed out.

"The twenty four hour supermarket might still have something though," Yasuhara said. "You two go in and we'll catch up later. Order without us if we take too long."

"Are you sure?" Mai asked, frowning.

"Yeah."

I glared at my two _friends_ and followed Mai inside. While I understood their intentions, this was taking it too far surely.

"We've got a table booked under the name of Davis," Mai told the waiter who came to greet us.

Said waiter checked down his list and nodded.

"Right this way Madam."

We followed him to a table set for four. This gave me some kind of hope that Gene and Yasuhara would return. We sat and began to glance down the menu.

"We could just get starters while we wait?" Mai suggested. "How about garlic bread? Everyone likes garlic bread."

I hummed in agreement as I scanned the drinks. Never before had 'being drunk' appealed more. _I'm sorry that I killed my brother Officer, but he tried to set me up with a girl in a not so subtle way and the alcohol made me do it._ Somehow I did not think that it would hold up in court.

At least in gaol I would not have to worry about stupid crushes or romances or Mai.

"Are you ready to order?"

The waiter had reappeared.

"Can we just get starters?" Mai asked. "We're waiting on two friends to join us."

"Of course."

"Then I'll have an orange J2O and then garlic bread to share please," Mai said.

The waiter looked to me.

"Just tap water please."

"Anything else?"

"No, that's all for now."

"Excellent, thank you."

The waiter walked away. He came back less than a minute later with our drinks and a promise that the garlic bread would be out any minute. Mai smiled up at him until he left.

"If I didn't know better, I would have guessed that Gene and Yasuhara just wanted to go and make out in an alley somewhere," Mai muttered.

I hummed again, distracted by the dancing light of the tea light candle.

"Though why they couldn't've just done that at home I don't know…"

"It is to do with the thrill of it, I imagine," I said in a low voice.

"Would you ever do that?"

"What?"

"Make out with someone in an alley?" Mai asked.

"I have no inclination to 'make out' with anyone regardless of location, so I doubt it."

"Oh, right."

The garlic bread arrived. Mai took a piece and munched it down. After a minute, I picked up a piece, glancing to the window in hope that Yasuhara or Gene would make their appearance.

"How long do you think they'll be?"

I did not answer. I had no idea. If they really had just gone to the supermarket, then their entire trip could not take longer than twenty minutes. If they had not gone to the supermarket, which I strongly suspected to be the case, then they would not reappear.

"I could phone Gene," I said finally.

"Yeah, okay."

I dialed his number and waited for an answer.

"Noll, how's it going?"

"How long are you going to be?" I asked, my voice terse.

"Ooh, I don't know, definitely a while yet, have you ordered?"

"Just a starter."

"Oh you should go and order mains and dessert too, don't wait on us."

"Gene."

"Yes Noll?" But he did not let me speak. "You're stuck with Mai for the next hour or so at least. Have a nice meal, I'll pay you back for the bill after. Enjoy yourselves!"

"Gene," I repeated, my frustration evident.

"Isn't this what you wanted? A date with Mai?" When I did not answer, Gene went on, "I'm not wrong, am I?"

Mai's worried face filled my vision.

"Just get here when you can," I muttered and hung up.

"Well?"

"It seems they've got caught up. Gene advised me that we should order our mains."

"Oh."

Mai picked up the menu again and hid behind it.

I sighed, and did likewise. But my eyes could not focus on the writing in front of me. This felt wrong. Forced. Last night had been eventful enough. But this was too much, too soon.

I wanted to leave.

But as I flattened the menu to the table to say so, Mai spoke up.

"Don't you think this is weird?"

"Huh?"

"Well first they lock us in your room together, now they leave us here together? And it's still all pink and roses and stuff from Valentine's Day and— Oh my! Are they trying to set us up?"

Had her tone been more jovial, I would not have minded this question. But Mai's fury was palpable.

"Were you in on this?" she demanded, her brows furrowed and her eyes burning with annoyance.

"I knew about it."

There was no point in lying.

Mai's mouth fell open. Then it closed in an angry huff.

"So— You— They— Grr!" She pounded her fists against the table. "Did you want this?"

There was no point in lying.

I nodded, keeping my face neutral.

Mai's face morphed from anger to disgust. She stood up and slammed her hands down onto the table again, causing many other diners to look around and stare.

"You don't trick girls into dates like this! It's repugnant! How on earth did you think this was a good idea?" Her face fell again. "And last night! Were you in on that too?"

I shook my head, but Mai was paying no attention.

"I thought were were friends Oliver. You don't trick your friends."

And with that, she stormed out of the restaurant.

The other diners soon returned to their meals, gossiping about the scene Mai had just made. I picked at the remainder of the garlic bread with a gaping hole in my chest. I wanted Gene and Yasuhara to appear, to see what their meddling had done.

But they did not come back.

I waved the waiter over, paid the bill and took my leave. Having no desire to go home, for I knew Mai would be there and no doubt crying into Masako's arms, I walked to the Physics department. As a student I could swipe my way in at any time with my student card.

Once inside, I walked up to the library. After finding a book, I curled up in a chair and read until I fell asleep.

* * *

I woke the next morning to several missed phone calls, all from Gene. It was almost five AM. I could go home, shower, eat and return to uni with plenty of time to spare.

So I did just that. I was in and out of the house before anyone else had woken up. I sent Gene a brief text to let him know I was still alive, but other than that, I ignored all attempts at communication.

When I arrived home that evening, I made myself a cup of tea and retreated straight to my room. My chair had yet to be moved downstairs again, but I did not draw attention to this fact. It enabled me to sit and read without worrying about my housemates bothering me.

Gene appeared around eight in the evening with food. He meant it as an apology. I ate the food, but felt no desire to speak with him. I was not angry with him, but with myself. I should not have placed myself in that ridiculous situation in the first place.

"I explained to Mai that it had been my idea," Gene said.

I responded only by pulling the bowl of pasta closer and taking a bite. Gene shrugged and left.

The following days did not become much easier. The house held a tense aura over it. I avoided the communal areas as much as possible. I stayed in my room, or left the house completely.

It took two weeks for Mai to stay in the same room as me for longer than the time it took to escape said room. This room was invariably the kitchen. She allowed me to put enough water in the kettle for her cup of tea, but that was it.

My affection for Mai was unrequited. I accepted that fact. Yet I did not know how to trigger the grieving process to rid myself of the ache in my chest every time she scampered away from me.

Ignoring problems rarely made them go away, but I did not know what else to do. My brother would be no help with this either, as the only serious design he had had on anybody had been Yasuhara, who returned his feelings with an equal, if not higher, regard.

The bubbles of happiness I had felt only weeks ago had been replaced by spikes of anger and jealousy trapped in an endless vacuous chasm.

I suppressed these emotions as best as I could, and focused on my work. The Easter holidays would soon be upon us, a welcome relief. I could stay at my parents house for three weeks, with no Mai to plague me.

As the Easter holidays drew closer, the level of work required from the students increased. Mostly in terms of lab work and revision for the upcoming exams. I found lab to be a necessary evil. I had managed to convince the staff that I should be allowed to work alone, whereas most students worked with a partner. This of course meant I had more to do, but I did not have to compensate for a useless partner who wanted to scrounge off of my grade.

Of course, the one rather large downside of going home for the holidays was my mother. Last she knew, I had been interested in a girl. I would have to set Gene on the task of correcting her of this impression.

This I managed the week before we went home.

"Gene, I need a favour," I said as I cooked my dinner.

Gene had just entered the room, looking rather haggard from a long day of uni.

"Yeah?"

"Please correct Luella's delusion of me being interested in a female."

Gene looked down at his feet, ashamed.

"Yeah, I'll make sure she doesn't bother you on that front," he mumbled.

"Do you want some food?" I offered.

"I'm supposed to wait for Yasuhara."

I nodded and plated up my food. Leaving the rest to cool in a plastic container. I walked straight past Gene and into the corridor so I could return to my room. Yet as I turned into the stairs, I walked straight into Mai.

Of course. Who else would I manage to run into and spill my food all over when I was trying to avoid them?

"Eugh!"

"Sorry," I muttered, bending down to scoop up the remains back into the bowl. At least I had another portion in the kitchen.

Mai did not stoop to help me, but stalked back upstairs to change. I did not blame her. I replaced my food and this time, I managed to retreat to my room without incident.

* * *

 **Author's note: Thank you all so much for your lovely reviews! I hope you all had a good Valentine's Day! I spent my evening waitressing so that was... Fun...  
I have found somewhere to live! And sorted out all the referencing! And hopefully I'll be starting my new job soon!**

 **Please review :)**


	9. Chapter 8

Gene had evidently had his chat with Luella regarding my feelings towards Mai. As when I arrived home for the Easter holidays, she embraced me and tiptoed around the subject.

In truth, this was to my benefit. She allowed me to sit in my room under the impression that I was 'heartbroken'. Of course, I was no such thing. By the end of the first two weeks, I was over Mai. The thought of her did not bother me in the slightest. I no longer had a crush. It was gone.

In the third week of the Easter holidays, my father, Martin, asked me to accompany two of his associates who were to be staying in our uni house as guests. I had known Lin and Madoka for a long time, so had no qualms showing them around. They were to be staying in Gene's room, as he had promised that he had cleaned it.

Lin and Madoka picked me up in their little town car early on Sunday morning. They would be visiting my university for a conference for the next few days, which would give me time to settle back into my routine before lectures began again.

We arrived just before lunchtime.

"Let's get a cup of tea before we lug the cases in," Madoka said. "I'm parched!"

I could not argue with Madoka. She would not listen to reason unless she felt so inclined. The fact that we had three small suitcases between us and that it would be more effort to collect them later was neither here nor there to Madoka.

I let us into the empty house and began down the corridor.

A heavy blow hit the side of my head, and I knew no more.

* * *

"... and Lin had gotten them completely confused and they'd been swapping t-shirts as they ran around Ikea until they finally screwed up," Madoka said, her voice full of laughter.

Another laugh reached my ears, followed by a low grunt.

"I thought that Mr and Mrs Davis were going to fire me right on the spot," Lin's voice muttered.

I frowned and stirred.

"Noll? Are you okay?"

I tried to speak, but only a low groan escaped my lips.

"He sounds about as coherent as usual," Madoka's voice said.

"My head…" I breathed.

"Yes, someone hit you over the head," Lin answered.

"Who…?"

No one answered. I opened my eyes. Light blinded me and I shut them again. Shielding my face, I reopened my eyes and glanced about. Someone had placed me on the sofa. I could see three figures at the table; Lin, Madoka and… Mai.

She refused to meet my eye.

"Why?" I demanded.

"Your friend here thought we were trying to rob the house," Madoka said, bemused by the look of shame on Mai's face.

"If it makes you feel any better, Noll," Lin went on. "I almost broke her arm in your defence."

"But we got everything straightened out."

Of course, Mai had no parents, she would have been in this house alone while everyone else had been at home with their families. A pang of guilt shot through my stomach. Had Luella known this… But no. I was over Mai.

"Sorry," Mai squeaked.

I did not respond. I could feel a bruise forming on the side of my head. It hurt. I forced myself up into a sitting position.

"We brought the cases in while you were out," Madoka said. "Mai showed us around."

I grunted.

"Do you want some tea?"

I grunted again.

Five minutes later, Mai pressed a steaming hot cup of tea into my hands before retreating behind Madoka.

"Why did you not take me to A&E?" I asked. "I lost consciousness and it is likely that I have concussion."

"Eh, you're fine," Madoka said, waving a hand. "If you start puking or something later then we'll take you."

I looked to Lin for a decent explanation, but he avoided my eye. In other words, Madoka bullied him into not taking me. I sighed.

"Do we have any frozen peas?"

"Oh it's not that bad," Madoka said with a roll of her eyes.

"Ice helps with reducing the bruising and—"

Mai scrambled off her feet and raced for the freezer, where she produced a pack of peas. She passed it over and I pressed it to my head. Guilt had written its way into every aspect of Mai's face.

"What exactly did you plan on doing after you had taken down the first intruder?" I asked her.

"Uh, well, try and hit the second one too?" she replied, staring at her fluffy sock bound feet.

"What were you using?"

"Masako's hockey stick."

"She had not been counting on one of the other's fighting back," Lin muttered. "I presume you have had no formal defence training?"

"No," Mai replied.

"Nor does she have any common sense," I said. "Had I heard intruders, I would have phoned the police."

A red tinge spread over Mai's cheeks. I had not seen her blush for weeks. But no, I was over Mai. Her shame was a natural response to the situation and her embarrassment was in no way cute or endearing.

"Okay well it long past lunch time, so who wants to go out for lunch?" Madoka asked brightly.

I glowered at her and pointed to my head.

"Mai, would you like to join Lin and I?" Madoka amended.

"Uh, no, I wouldn't want to impose, I've got food in that I need to eat anyway."

"Then will you be a dear and look after Noll for me?"

"Uh," Mai's eyes flicked to me and then back to Madoka, uncertainty clear in her expression, "Sure?"

"Great! Come on Lin."

Yes. Great. Just what I wanted.

Madoka and Lin disappeared off for lunch, leaving me and Mai alone. Mai continued to refuse to make eye contact for longer than a millisecond. She scuttled about clearing up the tea cups.

"Um, are you hungry? I can make you something?" she whispered.

"Yes."

"What would you like?"

"Whatever you're doing for yourself, without the meat or dairy."

"Okay."

From where I was sitting, I could not see Mai working in the kitchen. I shifted the peas around on my head and felt a drop of condensation roll down my neck.

Mai appeared a moment later with a sandwich on a plate, I took it from her and lifted the edge of the bread to see what was inside.

"This is just lettuce between bread," I pointed out.

"Well I can hardly make you a cheese, ham and lettuce sandwich, can I?" she replied. "And my margarine isn't dairy free so…"

I gave her a deadpan stare and kept her gaze as I bit into my lettuce 'sandwich'.

* * *

After finishing my lunch, if you can call it that, I returned the slightly defrosted peas to the freezer and headed up to my room. Perhaps something of my annoyance showed on my face, as Mai giggled as I walked past. Evidently, she was pleased with herself.

Once in my room, I unpacked my clothing and then flopped on my bed to read.

Mai disturbed me half an hour later with a knock on the door.

"Come in," I muttered.

"I brought you tea," she said as she entered.

"Thank you."

"I figured we're even now."

"Excuse me?"

"Well, you tricked me into a date and I hit you over the head with a hockey stick. So I think we're even now," Mai said from the doorway.

"It was not my idea," I replied. "That was Gene and Yasuhara's idea."

"Ah, yeah, um… Gene mentioned that before the holidays…" Mai mumbled. "But you were kind of avoiding me at that point and…"

I did not deny it.

"So, um, can we be friends again?" Mai asked. "I did make you tea after all."

The look of hope in her eyes infected my body. It crashed into the barrier that held back my feelings towards her and forced the floodgates open.

I could not bring myself to speak, so I merely nodded.

"Good, I don't want it to be awkward between us like it was before the holidays," Mai went on. "And the beginning of the holidays were lonely and…"

She trailed off rather pathetically. Then it struck me. She wanted to 'hang out'. I wondered how much of her attempts at reconciliation were due to loneliness. Though perhaps the time had given her chance to reconsider her reactions.

"If you want to sit in here and read," I offered, not bothering to finish my sentence as I saw recognition her eyes.

"Oh, no, I don't want to bother you!"

"If it was going to bother me, I would not have suggested it."

She smiled a little at my bluntness.

"Well, I'll leave you to it," she mumbled.

She closed the door behind her when she left, leaving me to return to my book. My eyes refocused on the page but the words were foreign to me. Something about the fact that Mai wanted to be friends distracted me from all else.

Drat.

I forced myself to read a sentence. I then reread it. On the third attempt the meaning went in, a bit.

I sighed. Ready to give up, I noted my page number and put the book down beside me. Perhaps after drinking a cup of tea I would be in a better state of mind to concentrate.

But no sooner had I taken the first sip when I heard another knock on my door.

"Come—"

But Mai had already walked in. Her hands were full of books and notepads. She clocked where I had sat on the bed and then dumped her stuff beside me and clambered into the empty space.

Without saying a word, she smiled at me, leant back against the wall and pulled one of the books towards her. She opened it to a bookmarked page and began making notes.

I watched her for a few minutes. She chewed her lip in concentrate and mumbled under her breath. Every now and then, she would hook her hair behind her ears only for it to fall forward again.

"What?"

She caught me staring.

"Your pen is running out," I said.

I fished an unused biro out of the pack on my desk and handed it over.

"Thanks."

I smiled at her.

Double drat.

Any notion of being 'over' Mai had been completely shattered. I was not 'over' her in the slightest. The bubble of happiness I had been so accustomed to a few weeks back had returned in full force at the sight of Mai, sat on my bed and studying.

I finished my tea and returned with ease to my book.

* * *

Madoka and Lin came back about an hour later with armfuls of shopping. Lin, like me, ate majorly vegan food. This meant that he would cook and I could reap the benefits of his superior cooking.

"What have you two kids been up to this afternoon then?" Madoka asked as Mai made a pot of tea for us all.

"Mai made me a lettuce sandwich," I said.

Mai's cheeks flared red and she pouted at me with her hands on her hips.

"You asked for whatever I was having without meat or dairy!" she protested.

I smirked back before noticing the way Madoka's eyes flicked between myself and Mai.

"How was your meal?" Mai asked Madoka, trying to direct the attention away from her burning cheeks.

"It was lovely, we found this lovely little Italian place about ten or fifteen minutes from here," Madoka said.

"Really?"

"Yeah, the garlic bread was the best I've ever had."

I tuned out to the conversation. I had only come downstairs at Madoka's insistence. The problem with Madoka is that I have to listen to enough of her requests so that she does not complain to my mother, who would make life infinitely more difficult.

I felt a vibration in my pocket.

 **Gene: How's it going?**

 **Oliver: Mai is here. She hit me with a hockey stick thinking I was an intruder. Otherwise all fine.**

 **Gene: Oh, Mai's there is she? What a coincidence!**

I glared at my phone.

 **Oliver: You knew.**

 **Gene: Me? No! Never…**

 **Gene: But Mum's email account might have been left open on her computer. And she might have had an email from Mai asking if it was okay for her to remain in the house for the Holidays…**

 **Oliver: So you and Luella schemed behind my back.**

 **Oliver: Remember the last time that happened?**

I pocketed my phone, too frustrated to care about any potential response Gene might have sent me.

"What's up with you, grumpy?" Madoka asked.

"Nothing."

"Then why are you scowling, you'll get wrinkles."

"What? Like yours?"

"No, worse than mine. Because mine are from laughing at you being stubborn," Madoka said.

I could see Lin and Mai trying not to laugh. Having no wish to share my thoughts, I chose to leave the room. It was only as I sat down on my bed and picked up my book again that I realised that the tea had not been made and I did not have a cup.

But I would not return downstairs.

Besides, if Mai wanted us to be friends, she would bring it up.

And bring it up, she did.

"I've got your tea," she said upon entry to my room. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Was it Gene?" she asked.

"Why do you say that?"

"He seems to be the only person that can rile you up like that," she mumbled, not making eye contact.

"Yes, it was Gene."

"What's he done this time?"

"He knew you were here and did not tell me or you. Therefore allowing you to think that this house was being robbed and causing me to be hit over the head by a hockey stick. If he had told either one of us, I would be in a lot less pain right now."

"Oh, um, yeah, sorry about that."

"Not only that, but my mother knew too."

"And she didn't tell you either?"

"No."

"But why?"

I could not answer this in all honestly. At least, not out loud and not to Mai.

"Thank you for the tea."

* * *

 **Author's note: Couldn't let it stay angsty for too long! Please review :)**


	10. Chapter 9

The following day, we had more house guests. Lin and Madoka disappeared off early for their conference, giving me the peace and quiet I craved. In truth, I did not dislike Madoka, but I found her exhausting to be around.

I settled down to a morning of revision on the dining table as it was closer to the kettle for top ups of tea. Mai joined me during the course of the morning with her own work.

At lunch, she revealed to me she had invited some friends of hers for the afternoon.

"Then I shall retreat to my room," I said as I made my own lunch. "I do not want to disturb you."

"Oh, it's okay! You can meet them!"

"I do not want to disturb you," I repeated.

True to my word, I ate, washed up my plate and collected my revision together. The doorbell rang and Mai raced past me to answer it. I managed to make it to the stairs by the time her guests had entered.

"Monk! I've missed you so much!"

"You're still as short as ever!" a male voice replied.

"She's malnourished," a scolding female added. "What have you been eating?"

"Was that that boy you told me about?"

I turned at the top of the stairs and locked myself in my room. From there, I continued to work. Though my concentration was often broken by loud male laughter from below. My bubble of happiness shrunk a little. In its place, something less definable grew.

I did not like it.

I finished the chapter I had started and decided I needed another cup of tea. The sound of laughter grew as I neared the living room only for it to die as I entered.

"Oliver!" Mai squeaked. "This is Monk, I mean Houshou, and his girlfriend, Ayako."

"Nice to meet you," Monk said, standing up and holding his hand out for me to shake.

I took it and observed his piercing eyes trying to suss me out. I kept my face blank and looked back to Mai.

"I am going to make tea," I muttered. "Do you want some?"

It was a cheap way to get her attention. I could not even find an excuse.

"Uh, please. Hang on, I'll help you."

Monk sent a knowing look Mai's way before rejoining Ayako on the sofa. Mai jumped up and followed me into the kitchen area.

Perhaps something of my real thoughts showed on my face, or perhaps Mai wanted to fill the silence, but she answered the question I had wondered since these people had arrived.

"Monk was my social worker," she told me as we collected together the cups, milk and sugar. "I was his first solo case after getting qualified."

The kettle boiled.

"When I first met him, he was bald like a monk so that's where the nickname came from," Mai said, refraining from giggling. "He'd shaved it off for a dare from one of his band members."

"Are you talking about me?" Monk demanded.

"No!" Mai replied, laughing.

"I'll leave you to it," I said to Mai as I picked up my tea.

There was no threat from this man if he was only her social worker, who had a girlfriend. That put him as a father or brother figure in her life. I was not jealous. Only concerned for Mai's happiness. Not that I did not trust her judgement, but considering she was the kind of person that left the bathroom door unlocked, I could not be too careful.

* * *

Mai's guests left just as Madoka and Lin returned. Madoka offered for them to stay to dinner, but Monk and Ayako revealed they had other plans. I had come down for another cup of tea as they departed and so was forced into shaking Monk's hand again.

"It was nice to meet you," Monk said to me in a bright cheery voice, before lowering it and growling, "If you hurt Mai in anyway I will hurt you twice as much."

I let go of his hand. I thought he took his protective father role a little too far with that comment. Mai sent a frown my way, but I removed myself from the area. Lin had begun cooking in the kitchen, so I joined him.

"How was the conference?"

"Dull. Introductory talks and unnecessary amounts of social meet and greets," Lin replied. "Tomorrow's plan looks much more enjoyable."

The front door closed. Mai and Madoka swept into the room and flopped onto the sofa.

"You need a TV here," Madoka whined. "I want to watch a film."

"The cinema isn't far," Mai said. "See what's on. Or use your laptop or something."

"Eugh, effort."

"You want to watch something."

"Fine, what's on at the cinema?" Madoka asked.

Mai sighed and fiddled on her phone for a few minutes before listing various films.

Tuning out, I helped Lin with his cooking. I noticed he had made enough for all four of us, though he had not asked Mai if she wanted any.

"Ooh yeah! Let's all go and see a horror film!" Madoka cried.

Only one word of this reached my ears: all. She wanted to include me. I looked to Lin, hoping he would put an end to this nonsense. Yet Lin did not look as put off by this suggestion as I wished him to be.

"If the times are conducive with our dinner plans, then I am okay with this," Lin said.

I groaned. If I escaped to my room now, I would miss out on dinner. If I stayed downstairs, I would be bullied into going by Madoka.

I could live without food.

I started towards the door, but Madoka saw through my actions.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"My room."

"But food will be ready soon," Madoka pointed out, her voice sickly sweet. "And then we are all going to the cinema."

"We shouldn't make Oliver come if he doesn't want to," Mai said, pouting at Madoka.

Never before had I considered kissing anyone. But at that moment, I could have kissed Mai.

"See. So I will eat and then you can go out."

"And what will your mother say if she hears I abandoned you like that?"

"I am not an infant left on a door step," I retorted. "I am twenty years old and perfectly capable of remaining alone for a few hours."

"And you are also capable of coming with us," Madoka said. "Or do I have to call your mother?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mai's incredulous expression.

I scowled at Madoka and returned to the kitchen. Tea. I needed tea. If she was going to force me into this ridiculous social outing…

"You know why she is doing this, correct?" Lin said in a low voice so that the women could not hear.

My scowl deepened. Of course. Madoka would be acting under my mother's orders.

"I would just grin and bear it," Lin advised. "I have persuaded Madoka away from a few other ideas."

"Do I want to know?"

Lin's face reddened. A rare sight.

"No, I think not."

And so after we had eaten, we all walked to the cinema. Madoka paid for the tickets and popcorn. Two buckets of popcorn for the two 'couples' to share.

By Madoka's design, I ended up sat next to Mai and holding the bucket of popcorn that I had no interest in eating. I decided to text Gene.

 **Oliver: When are you coming home?**

 **Gene: Back to uni? At the weekend, why?**

 **Oliver: Madoka.**

 **Gene: Mum set her up to cause you trouble?**

 **Oliver: That is why I am sat in a cinema right now.**

 **Gene: Sucks, what are you seeing?**

 **Oliver: I neither know nor care.**

"Who are you texting?" Mai asked, over the noise of the adverts.

"Guess."

"Gene?"

I nodded.

"You miss him, huh?" she said.

"In a manner of speaking."

"I think it's sweet. I'm glad you get on well. I know some siblings don't and it sucks."

I had nothing to say to that, so turned my phone on silent and pocketed it.

"Ooh, I should turn my phone off huh," Mai mumbled, fishing her own phone out of her coat pocket and fiddling with it for a moment. "Um, Oliver?"

"Yes?"

"Could I have your phone number? I mean I have everyone else's in the house and you never know when something might come up…"

"Okay."

"Really?"

"Why not?"

"Uh, right, yeah, just put it in."

She handed me her phone on the 'New Contact' page. I filled in my details and handed it back.

"Thanks. I'll text you if you want, so you have my number too?"

"If you want."

"Mai! Put your phone away, it's about to start!" Madoka hissed.

Mai scrambled to put her phone back in her pocket. Then she leant towards me and whispered.

"I'm not very good with scary films, I get really jumpy so I'm sorry in advance if I grab your arm or anything. I'll try not to, I promise but…"

"Does this mean you want me to hold onto the popcorn?" I asked.

"For the sake of the rows in front of us, yeah."

I smirked and pointed the popcorn bucket in her direction so she could take some. We both turned our attention to the film. I had been forced through enough 'horror' movies to understand the basic premise of cheap scare films.

Five young, cliche characters went to some isolated haunted location. The black guy died first and the busty blonde was caught in the shower by the monster. The jock died trying to do something supposedly heroic, but in reality was just plain stupid.

Poor plot and cheap gore aside, Mai was true to her word. She jumped at every little thing and then giggled afterwards as if she knew how foolish her fright had been. Once or twice, she had reached for my arm, but stopped herself.

I put the popcorn down on the seat beside me that was otherwise empty but for my coat. Then placed my left arm on the armrest between myself and Mai. Curiosity rose within me to see if she would take the bait.

Not that I cared if she did. But the social science experiment I had constructed in my head was more interesting than the film. I waited, knowing a jump scare would be just around the corner — literally, for the character.

Mai jumped. Her arms flew out and one touched my arm. I watched, curious, as Mai's attention turned to me. She looked down at my arm, then up to my face. Her eyes glistened from the screen's light. Had it been brighter in the theatre, I might have seen a blush.

She released my arm, flustered. Interesting.

At the next jump scare, Mai grabbed my arm and did not let go. She did not look at me either. Her hands, that must have been half the size of mine, remained grasped around my bicep.

Her hands stayed there for the rest of the film.

When the lights came up, she released me and began faffing with her coat and pockets to avoid my eye. Her cheeks reddened when I passed her the remaining popcorn.

"Thanks."

We trooped out of the cinema and began the walk home. Madoka and Mai began sharing opinions about the film. I half listened.

Having never had a close female friend before, I did not know if touching arms like that would be considered normal and platonic. Had Gene touched me like that, I would not have been bothered. But Gene preferred to hide behind a pillow when watching horror films. Yasuhara would hide behind Gene.

Friends touched each other, right? A lot of people sought physical comfort for a variety of ailments.

When we made it home, it was late. Though I had no reason to be up early the next day, I did not want to ruin my sleep pattern. I bid everyone goodnight and headed straight for bed.

Yet I had not been in bed more than five minutes when my phone buzzed.

 **Unknown number: Hi, I forgot to text you earlier so this is my number!**

 **Unknown number: Oh, it's Mai! Sorry I forgot to say!**

 **Unknown number: Sorry if I woke you up.**

 **Unknown number: Goodnight Oliver!**

I saved the number under Mai's name and pondered a response.

 **Oliver: My arm has just about recovered enough for me to sleep.**

I waited.

 **Mai: I did not grab it that hard!**

 **Oliver: But you certainly were not letting go…**

 **Mai: It was a scary movie! I would have let go if you'd asked!**

 **Oliver: That film was not scary.**

 **Mai: Alright, just because you're all brave and stuff!**

I could see her pouting in my mind's eye. But 'brave'? Hardly.

 **Oliver: Or able to predict the poor story line…**

 **Mai: Oh shush and go to sleep.**

 **Oliver: I was trying before you interrupted me.**

 **Mai: -.-**

 **Mai: Goodnight Oliver.**

 **Oliver: Goodnight Mai.**

I locked my phone and placed it back on my bedside table. Perhaps we would never be anything other than friends. But at that moment, I did not think I would mind that in the slightest.

* * *

 **Author's note: Hope you all liked this chapter! Please review :)**


	11. Chapter 10

Masako, Yasuhara and Gene returned at the weekend after Madoka and Lin had departed. Masako and Mai immediately began talking faster than I could be bothered to keep up with about things I did not care for. Gene and Yasuhara, who had not seen each other for three whole weeks, were all over each other. So I retreated to the solitude of my room, where I checked my emails to find that the exam timetables had been delivered. I noted my exams down.

The last few weeks of lectures were always crammed. Lecturers would throw more content at their students after realising they had not taught everything on the exam that they had written. Then there would be three weeks of exams. My exam timetable showed all my exams to have finished in the first two, but I knew that other members of the household would not be so lucky.

My assumption was correct. I found out that evening by text that Mai's timetable had her exams one a day for the last four days of the exam period.

The rest of the semester flew past and we soon found ourselves in the exam period. Like every other exam period, I holed myself up in my room.

On the first day, I set up my desk and organised my revision. I had been working through problem sheets for about two hours when I heard a knock on my door.

"Come in."

But Mai had already entered and plonked herself on my bed.

"Masako just does not shut up!" she moaned. "She sits there and mutters to herself while supposedly revising and it is driving me nuts!"

"So you plan on working in here?" I asked, eyebrow raised.

Mai flushed red, but did not leave.

"Yes."

"Then I expect a cup of tea for the inconvenience."

Mai laughed, put her folders and paper down and jumped up.

"Coming right up."

I smiled as she left and returned to my work. Five minutes later I had a cup of steaming hot tea on my desk and a considerably calmer housemate on my bed. We worked together in silence until lunchtime.

"We should eat," Mai muttered, breaking my concentration.

"If you are hungry, go and eat."

"You should eat too."

"Hmm."

"Oliver."

I could hear the warning in her tone.

"Yes?"

"You are going to come down and eat something."

"Hmm."

Mai stood up and stole the pen from my hand. She then attempted to drag me from my chair. But my chair had wheels and all Mai succeeded in doing was dragging my chair across the floor.

"Are you done?"

"Come on, food," she whined.

I rolled my eyes and stood up.

"Fine."

Mai grinned up at me and then dropped my hand.

"Gene said you were bad at looking after yourself," she mumbled as we headed downstairs.

"Did he now?"

"Yeah, so I said I would look after you if I saw that you weren't eating enough and stuff," she said in an off hand manner. "But I get it, sometimes you just get caught up in stuff and—"

"Forget to lock the bathroom door?" I suggested.

"Oh my! Just let that go! I have not done that since!"

"You mean that you have not been caught," I teased as we entered the kitchen.

Gene and Yasuhara were already cooking their own lunch.

"What are you two lovebirds up to?" Mai asked.

"We could ask you two the same question," Gene retorted.

Mai's cheeks flared red as she squealed, "We were revising!"

"What a vague statement," Yasuhara said. "What do you think they were revising, Gene?"

"Hmm, so many possibilities! I think they were revising the subject of 'Avoiding their feelings' and 'Daydreams about kissing'."

"I left my phone upstairs!" Mai squawked.

She all but ran from the room. I glared at Gene.

"What?" he asked, full of fake innocence. "She likes you!"

"We are friends," I pointed out.

"No, she _like_ likes you," Gene corrected. "It's a recent thing, but she would not be reacting like that if she didn't like like you."

I rolled my eyes.

"No, she does not. We are just friends."

"You just keep telling yourself that."

I began making sandwiches with the intention of making a few too many so I could take the spares back to my room.

"What's in your sandwiches?" Mai's voice asked from beside me.

She had reappeared at some point without me noticing. Her eyes were pointedly staring at the sandwiches so that Gene and Yasuhara had no reason to begin teasing again.

"Hummus and falafel."

"Will you make me one? I'll make us some tea to take back up."

"Okay."

I pulled out two more slices of bread and set to making another sandwich. Gene and Yasuhara were sending amused looks my way, but I ignored them. They had interfered enough in my and Mai's relationship.

Ten minutes later, Mai and I ate out sandwiches in silence in my room. Or rather, I ate, while Mai frowned at her shoes.

"You should eat," I said, echoing her own words back at her.

"What? Oh, yeah, sorry."

She lifted a sandwich to her mouth, but paused mid action. I reached over and flicked her forehead. Mai blinked and pouted at me.

"Ignore Gene and Yasuhara. They're both idiots. Now eat your sandwich before you spill hummus everywhere."

Mai nodded and began to eat. By the end of her first sandwich, she appeared less troubled. I turned on my chair and returned to work. Mai followed suit soon after.

Our afternoon passed as quietly as the morning had. Occasionally one of us would go and make tea. The arrangement worked well. It reminded me of working in my father's study during my A levels. At that time, we both worked in silence in the same room. I could not explain it at the time, but the presence of another being had been comforting.

* * *

I had four exams. I finished all of them with plenty of time to spare and no doubts about any of my answers. Yet even after I had finished my own exams, Mai continued to work in my room. I relinquished my desk for her use while I read on my bed.

I noticed several things about Mai during this time. She did not deal with stress well. Or rather, she had periods of time where she dealt with it very well, followed by a few hours where she fell to pieces. Everytime she began to fall apart, I made her tea, which seemed to calm her a little.

Where previously we had shared cooking duties, I took over, much to Gene's amusement. He, like me, had finished his exams by this point. While he was assisting Yasuhara with his final exam in the same way I was catering to Mai, Gene still found time to tease.

For the most part, I ignored him. But sometimes I feared that his words were upsetting Mai. Stress caused her upset at a lot of minor things, such as dropping her pen or being unable to do her shoelace up on the first attempt.

The night before Mai's first exam, I took her dinner up only to find her crying onto my desk. Crying Mai was bad. It was hard to read when someone was crying two metres away from you.

I placed the plate of food down next to her.

"What is wrong?"

"I can't do it."

She hiccoughed herself into silence and looked up at me. Her eyes had puffed up.

"I just… I keep looking at it all… I just can't do it!"

Her breath quickened.

"I just…"

Panic attack.

I flicked her on the forehead to gain her attention.

"Mai, listen to me. Breathe in slowly. Mai, listen. Breathe in to the count. In, two, three, four. And hold it, two, three, four, five, six, seven. "And out, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight."

I repeated this several times until she had calmed down.

"I'm sorry," she sobbed.

"You had a panic attack. It is not abnormal given the level of stress."

"These exams don't even matter, I just have to pass them to get into next year," she whimpered. "But I'm so worried about failing them! And then I've got to find somewhere to live for the summer! And…"

Any further words that came out of her mouth were lost to sobbing.

"I will get you some tissue."

I headed to the bathroom and retrieved a toilet roll, when something of Mai's words hit a cord. She had to find somewhere to live? I presumed she would have free reign of this house, as neither she nor Masako had indicated that they would be moving out.

I questioned her upon reentry to my room.

"What did you mean about finding somewhere to live?" I asked as I passed over the toilet roll.

"I emailed Luella to check it would be okay and she said I couldn't… And I don't have parents to go back to! I said I'd pay more but she said I couldn't!"

Her sobs renewed. I could not understand it. Why would my mother refuse?

"I have nothing to do for the next week," I told Mai. "I will find you somewhere to live for the summer."

"Really?"

I gave her a deadpan stare.

"Thank you Oliver!"

"Eat your food before it gets cold."

Mai blew her nose and picked up the fork. Meanwhile, I grabbed my laptop to write a strongly worded email to my mother.

"How… How did you know what to do?" Mai asked a few minutes later.

I did not look up as I continued to type.

"Gene and I used to get them."

"Why? Or is it too—"

"We were orphans too once," I explained. "Born in America. Our mother died and our father abandoned us. We both suffered from nightmares and late onset PTSD. Luella is a psychologist, she referred us for treatment. But anxiety is part of it."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"Why?"

"Well that's horrible!"

"Our birth parents were not good parents. Luella and Martin, for all their faults, are preferable."

"I'm glad you're happy with them," she said, smiling.

"Me too."

* * *

Mai's first exam went absolutely fine, but she had no time to relax. She dove straight into revision for the next exam. This routine continued until the day before her last exam.

We had already eaten our evening meal. I was reading and Mai was due to have her daily breakdown.

As if on cue, Mai spun around to face me.

"Yes?" I prompted.

"I like you," she blurted. "Like, really like like you."

I had not expected that.

"You… Like me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"You deal with all my crap and don't complain," she said.

"I see."

"Look, I didn't ask for a response or for you to go out with me or whatever," Mai muttered. She sounded almost angry. "I am just informing you of how I feel. I have a headache and an exam tomorrow and I don't care about anything any more."

And with that, she spun back around on the chair to face the desk to furiously scribble away again.

Ignoring her odd behaviour, I recognised a few problems within her statement that I could fix. I got up and headed to the kitchen to make tea. While the kettle boiled, I located some paracetamol and poured a small glass of water.

I took the tea, water and painkillers up to my room and placed them next to Mai. She muttered a quiet 'thanks' as I sat down on my bed. I refreshed my emails, but nothing from my mother yet. I could not fathom her reasons for refusing Mai.

Nor could I fathom Mai's confession.

Gene had been 'like liked' me. Or was it just a response to the stress because I had been kind?

* * *

 **Author's note: So this is now drawing to a close! Finaly chapter out tomorrow! Thank you all for your kind reviews!**

 **Please review :)**


	12. Chapter 11

Mai fell asleep that night on my desk. I picked her up and carried her through to her room, where I found Masako still working.

"Which is her bed?" I asked.

"The top one, but you'll never lift her up there, shove her on my bed, I don't mind."

Mai stirred a little in my arms as I placed her down. I covered her with the duvet and made to leave.

"Nunigh…" she mumbled.

"Goodnight, Mai."

I returned to my own room and tidied the desk, clearing it of dirty mugs and putting away Mai's pens into her pencil case. I had just been about to take the cups down to wash them when my phone rang.

 **Luella Davis is calling you!**

I answered it.

"Hello Mother."

"Oh, Noll, I'm sorry, I only just saw your email! I promise I can explain everything!"

I pressed the phone to my ear and held it there with my shoulder as I carried the mugs downstairs. I listened to my mother's explanation and now understood her reasoning.

"I will clear everything up with Mai tomorrow," I told her. "Mai has already gone to bed."

"Can you tell her I'm so sorry for causing her any worry? It was not intentional in the slightest!"

"I will pass along your apology."

"Thank you Noll! Right, you should be off to bed too!"

"Yes Mother."

"I love you Noll, I'm so proud of you, you remember that okay?"

"Yes Mother."

"Speak to you soon!"

I hung up before her emotions could go too far and headed to bed myself.

* * *

Both Mai and Masako's last exam took place in the morning. I stayed out of the way as they rushed around to get ready to leave. After they had departed, I set about collecting together all of Mai's things together.

She had left folders of notes, practice exam papers and various items of stationery in my room and on my desk. I stacked the whole lot up together so she could collect it with ease.

"Oi, you busy?"

I looked around to see Gene in my doorway.

"Not particularly, why?"

"Yasuhara and I were thinking of having another party tonight."

"A real one this time?"

"Yeah, soon as it's the end of exams and all."

My distaste showed on my face.

"And it might be to get drunk enough to phone Mum and Dad about being gay," Gene added, staring at his feet.

I rolled my eyes.

"You think they don't know?" I asked.

"Well—"

"Luella phoned me last night," I interrupted. "She mentioned Yasuhara and how 'utterly delighted' she was that you'd invited him around for some part of the holidays. She also added that she hoped you would ask him out soon, soon as he was just a 'nice young man'."

"Oh."

"So how about no party, and you just phone her now," I suggested.

"Compromise, party finishes at midnight and I phone her now?" Gene offered, now grinning.

"Deal, if I can borrow your flask."

"My flask?"

"Yes."

"Sure? It's in my cupboard on the left at the back."

"Thanks."

I headed down to the kitchen and began making a large pot of tea. I poured it into Gene's flask, after washing it out, and located the two cups that screwed on as the lid. Checking the time, I had about twenty minutes until the end of Mai's exam.

So I threw together some sandwiches, grabbed my book and a pack of cards and shoved the whole lot in my bag.

"Do you want a picnic blanket?" Gene offered upon watching my efforts from the sofa.

"Do you have one?"

"Yeah, give me a second."

Gene reappeared a few minutes later with a picnic blanket.

"I promise that it's clean," he insisted as he pressed it into my hands. "I'll phone Mum once you've gone and… Good luck, Noll."

"I don't need luck," I replied, smirking. "She confessed to me last night."

Gene's mouth dropped, then returned to a grin. He pulled me into an unwanted hug that I half-heartedly returned for his benefit. Then I left the house with the bubble of happiness in my stomach brighter than the summer sun.

Mai's exam was in one of the large old halls. During the winter exams, these halls were the worst as they had no proper heating in them. In the summer, they were a welcome relief from the sun. I would not be allowed into the building while an examination was taking place, so I waited just outside, leant against a wall with my nose in a book.

"Hey."

Her voice shook me from my thoughts. I lowered the book to find Mai beaming up at me.

"Hi."

"What are you doing here?"

"I was reading."

"Yeah, but why here? It's sunny, you'll burn if you're not careful!"

"So will you."

"You're avoiding my question."

Instead of answering her question, I leant forwards and placed a singular, soft kiss on her forehead. Mai's cheeks burned red, but she did not look away.

"I brought tea, sandwiches and a picnic blanket. Do you know somewhere we could go?" I asked.

"Um, yeah, yeah I do. Follow me."

She appeared to steel herself, as she then grabbed my hand and did not let go. I let her lead me away.

"I solved your housing issue for the summer."

"You did?"

"As both you and Masako wanted to stay for the next year, my mother has arranged for a loft conversion so that you could each have your own rooms." Mai's mouth fell open. "So you cannot remain in the house while the building work is going on for safety reasons."

"But you said you solved the problem?"

"When I explained how dire your situation was to my mother, she offered two alternatives at her expense. The first, would be that she'd put you up in a hotel for the course of the summer."

"But she can't do that!"

"She can and she would."

"But even cheap hotels cost a lot!"

"Which is why she suggested you come and live with us for the summer."

"What?"

"Which part did you not understand?"

"I understood!" Mai said, pouting.

"We have a spare room. Yasuhara was going to be using it when he comes to visit, but I feel he'd rather stay in Gene's room. So there is no reason why you could not stay in it. There are reasonable public transport routes if you want to go elsewhere for a while."

"Would you mind, if I stayed?"

"If I minded, I would not have suggested it to you."

Mai smiled.

"Okay then!"

She led me to a peaceful spot in the nearby park, where we set up the picnic blanket and shared squished sandwiches and tea. Mai told me all about her exam and all the silly mistakes she thought she had made.

Only later, when the tea and the food was gone, did I remember Gene's plans for the evening. As we began the walk home, I told her about it.

"Gene is planning another party for this evening."

"Really? Eugh. All I want right now is sleep! Okay, maybe dinner first, then sleep."

"Would you like to hide with me?" I offered.

Mai squeezed my hand and grinned.

"Always."

* * *

 **Author's note: And so this is the last chapter! I hope you enjoyed this little story! Please review :)**


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